Four Children Who Were Raised By Animals

In mythology, literature and cinema there have been multiple cases of children who, either by abandonment or by some tragedy, have ended up being raised by wild animals, such were the cases of Romulus and Remus or Tarzan. However, these cases also occur in real life and, although they are not very frequent, they surprise researchers, psychologists and sociologists alike.

This class of children is known as “feral children” (From the Greek ferālis, which meant fierce). In the documented cases of these children , behavioral problems can be observed (aggressive behaviors, tearing their clothes, howling or imitating animals), difficulty walking upright and speech problems.

These types of attitudes derive from 2 situations, in the first and most common, children who have grown up in almost absolute isolation, therefore they did not have the opportunity to learn behavioral patterns from the human circles around them. In the second the children were (supposedly) raised by animals, therefore they tend to behave like these by imitation.

Here are some of the most famous cases of feral children raised by animals:

John ssbunya

John Ssbunya is an African boy who was raised and lived for 3 years with monkeys. When John was 3-4 years old, he watched his father murder his mother. The boy ran away from home and into the jungle. Another story tells that possibly his father was the one who in fact abandoned him in the jungle because he did not want to take care of him.

Once in the jungle the boy was found by a herd of monkeys, who offered him food and the boy decided to follow them. In a short time he began to imitate their movements and little by little he became a member of that pack.

After about 3 years a young woman named Milly Sebbavio saw him naked and gathering fruits with other young monkeys and went to alert the community. After a tough rescue (neither the monkeys nor Jhon allowed him to be taken away), John was treated by medical personnel and, despite having conflicts with food, had parasites and a high degree of malnutrition, he was able to survive. Currently Jhon continues to live in Uganda and is part of a choir with which he has traveled to many countries such as England and France.

Natasha

Natasha’s case is quite recent, it was discovered in 2009 in Siberia in the town of Chita when she was 5 years old. What surprised the authorities was that the girl was aggressive in contact with humans, in addition to walking on all fours and drinking water with her tongue. He also communicated by barking.

The girl had been locked in a room with cats and dogs all her life, being her only human contact when her parents entered the room to feed her. These were arrested and convicted of negligence.

Maria Isabel Quaresma Do Santos

María Isabel lived her entire life confined in a chicken coop until she was discovered by a social worker at the age of 9. Coming from a large family in Portugal, María was locked up by her mother, who suffered from serious mental disorders, in the chicken coop after she considered that she did not belong to the family.

Probably what is most surprising about this case is that the girl’s case was not unknown in the place where she lived, Tábua, however, no one reported. When she was rescued, the girl only emitted a few cackles, moving like chickens and went from states of euphoria and fury to total self-absorption.

In addition to this, as a result of having fed exclusively on chicken feed, he developed serious growth problems. Despite the efforts that were made in her case, having been isolated for so long, added to extreme malnutrition, made her stagnate at 2 years forever, living in an institution for the mentally ill to this day.

Marcos Rodriguez Pantoja

Marcos Rodríguez is the most documented case of a wild Spanish child. Coming from Andalusia and born in 1946, he was sold by his father to a shepherd who soon abandoned him in the mountains. Soon after, he was found by a pack of wolves, with whom the boy began to share prey and lived with them for 12 years.

During the Spanish Civil War, he was found and transferred to the house of a priest and later to a convent, where they corrected a deviation in his spine as a result of so many years walking hunched over. He had a lot of trouble adjusting to the rules and life in the city, and he led a difficult life even today.