You won’t believe how this most recent case of a “feral child” turned out…This young girl was found living in the jungle with monkeys for years before being rescued…
She Hadn’t Been Seen For Two Years
This eight-year-old girl was found living with a troop of monkeys in the woods of Bahraich, India after being reported missing by her father for nearly two years…
She Displays No Human Behaviors
The little girl can only communicate by screeching, and is terrified of humans. Doctors trying to treat her are fearful of her violent outbursts and saddened by her severely underdeveloped mental state…
The Truth Of Her Disappearance
As it turns out, she was abandoned by her parents due to severe mental disabilities. Raising a mentally disabled girl was shameful to her family, and they left her in the woods on purpose…
A Sad Reality
Families in India traditionally prefer sons over daughters, and would rather abandon the child than spend the money on her. It’s clear that this girl is not only mentally but physically disabled, and it will take much rehabilitation before she can live a normal life…
Assimilation Is Slow
Though she’s still learning to eat off of a plate, she can walk on two legs. When she was found, she was walking like a monkey on all fours, and hissing and screeching, mimicking her caretakers…
She Completely Adapted To The Jungle
She is subjected to daily examinations from doctors, because she was found covered in wounds. The skin on her hands and feet was incredibly tough and her nails were filed into sharp claws. She must have adapted well…
Accepted As One Of Their Own
Authorities are unsure how long she may have been living with primates, but it is apparent they didn’t try to hurt her. They must have taken her in as their own…
Are The Parents To Blame?
The whole town has come together to look after her in the hospital. It is unclear if authorities will contact the girl’s parents, considering they left her in the jungle on purpose…
She Is Fearful Of Humans
Nobody knowshow she ended up in the jungle, but she was fully clothed when she was found surrounded by her “family” of primates. Whenever doctors try to examine her or people from the town try to give her food or clotning, she cowers away in fear…
She Does Not Understand Language
Unfortunately, she has very limited communication skills. She does not understand language so she cannot tell anyone her story. She has made minimal improvements since being taken to the hospital, but it’s slow progress…
Mowgli 2.0
Her story is akin to Rudyard Kipling’s famous tale, “The Jungle Book,” about a boy named Mowgli who is raised by wolves and other jungle creatures. “The Jungle Book” also takes place in the jungles of India, ironically enough…
She Is Getting The Help She Needs
The girl has now been deemed mentally challenged, since before getting lost in the woods, and has been moved to a shelter for the disabled in Lucknow, India.
This Has Happened Before
She is what’s formally known as a “feral child,” and there have been various cases of incidents of children with nearly no communication skills, living in neglect or with animals throughout history…
Feral Children
Feral children spark a major debate between nature vs nurture, psychology, human development, and philosophy…
Genie Wiley
Genie’s case is the most famous regarding feral children. She was subjected to brutal neglect for the first 13 years of her life…
A Neglectful, Abusive Father
Genie’s father purposefully isolated her for thirteen years. She was late to walk as an infant, which made him believe she was mentally challenged. That led to countless other problems that poor Genie suffered at his hands…
Nature VS Nurture
Her father would keep Genie locked in a bedroom, only feed her occasionally, never speak to her, viciously beat her, and tied her down to sleep at night. This led to severe developmental problems…
Re-Entering Society
Genie’s severe mental and physical problems were no easy task to overcome. She endured a lengthy hospital stay because she was sick and malnourished, and she worked with doctors and therapists endlessly in order to learn language and how to perform physical tasks. She was subjected to lots of testing in order to determine the impact the abuse had on her brain…
Wild Peter
In 1724, a 12-year-old child was discovered in the woods of Germany. They named him, appropriately, Wild Peter…
An Audience For King George I
Wild Peter’s life is quite sad. He was taken to King George I’s court in England and was kept as a sort of pet because they found his story so intriguing. Upon further research, modern medicine has indicated that Peter was actually autistic, as well as suffering from whatever mental disabilities occurred from living in isolation at such a young age…
Amala and Kamala
An orphanage priest claimed to have found two young girls, Amala and Kamala, living in a wolf den. Anthropologists and doctors had a hard time believing the story, and eventually a surgeon confirmed it was all a hoax. The girls had neurological disorders and were being presented as feral children to raise money for their orphanage..
Helen Keller
Helen Keller was socially isolated due to her deafness and blindness, though to a lesser degree than Genie Wiley. Keller had a hard time understanding language and sentence structure due to the unique way she had to learn. She also did not suffer abuse the way other children did, which made her recovery from isolation easier…
Rochom P’ngieng
Rochom P’ngieng was discovered in the Cambodian jungle in 2007. A family claimed her as their daughter who’d disappeared 18 years earlier. However, after three years Rochom still struggled to adapt to modern life and ran away to the jungle again, where she felt the most at home.
Wild Ray
Sometimes, feral children cases end up as a joke. 21-year-old Ray appeared at a German police station in 2011 claiming he’d lived alone in the wild for the last several years. Well. Turns out, Ray was a wild liar who was just bored of his blue collar job in the Netherlands and had posed as a feral child for attention.
John Ssebunya
In 1991, John Ssebunya was found in the wild in Uganda, claiming he’d been living in the woods for years and was raised by monkeys. Primatologist looked into his claims and determined that, as a child, John had likely lived among primates but had not necessarily been raised as an infant monkey in the cases of most feral children.
Marina Chapman
Kidnapped from her home in Colombia in 1954 at just 5 years old, Marina was abandoned in the jungle and ended up living with a troop of capuchin monkeys. She even acted like one of them.
Oxana Malaya
Oxana lived with dogs in a kennel for years. Her parents were negligent, alcoholic, and unable to care for her. She learned their behavior and mannerisms, and even acquired an acute sense of dog-like hearing, smell, and sight.
Shamedo
In 1972, a four-year-old boy was discovered in the forests of India. HE was playing with wolf cubs and even displayed some canine behaviors. He had long, hooked fingernails, calluses on his hands and knees, sharpened teeth, and suffered from a craving for blood.
Prava, the Bird Boy
In 2008, Prava was rescued by Russian healthcare professionals. He’d been living in a small two-bedroom apartment with his mother and dozens of birds. His mother suffered from mental illness and treated Prava as a bird, not as a person.
Leopard Boy
In 1912, a two-year-old boy was stolen from his parents by a leopard in the Himalayan Mountain range. Three years later he was found by a hunter, living in harmony with the leopard and her babies. He displayed all feline characteristics. Eventually, he was able to assimilate back to human society.