What if the Jungle Book was real? Disturbingly, the story of Mowgli's upbringing is closer to real life than you'd think.
You might recall the story ‘Jungle Book’ where the main character is the boy or "man-cub" Mowgli, who is raised in the jungle by wolves. Or you might recall the fictional character Tarzan of the Apes, a feral child who is raised in the jungle by great apes. But did you know there are real stories of this happening? Join us as we take a look at 10 People Raised By Animals.
10. John Ssebunya – After a family dispute, a terrified and fearful John escaped into the jungle and was lost. His disappearance was forgotten, but three years later a woman from a nearby tribe, while searching for some food in the jungle, encountered John who at the time would be 5 years old.
9. Ivan Mishukov – Also known as Moscow’s Dog Boy, Ivan Mishukov was born in 1992, shortly after the Soviet Union collapsed. The newly independent Russia found itself struggling to pick up the pieces with a nearly bankrupt economy and a severe drop in living standards
8. Sujit Kumar - Sujits parents wanted to get rid of the dysfunction, even though they themselves were heavily dysfunctional, so they put him out into a chicken pen to live with the chickens and as a result he became very much like the chickens he was forced to live with.
7. Bird Boy – In 2008, Russian care workers discovered a boy who could only communicate by chirping like a bird and flapping his arms as if they were wings. The neglected child was found living in a tiny two-room apartment surrounded by cages containing dozens of birds, bird feed and droppings.
6. Oxana Malaya - For five years, Oxana Malaya lived with dogs and survived on raw meat and scraps. When she was found she was running around on all fours barking.
5. Kamala and Amala, the Wolf Girls of Midnapore – There is a story about two girls who were raised by a she-wolf. As the story goes, in 1920, Reverend J.A.L. Singh saw a mother wolf and her wolf cubs.
4. Marina Chapman - Shortly before her fifth birthday, Marina recalls playing in her family’s garden. She says she became aware of two adults behind her, and before she knew it she was taken away, with sounds of crying children being her last memory before she blacked out.
3. Rochom P’ngieng, Cambodian Jungle Girl - Rochom P'ngieng first disappeared into a thick hilly jungle in 1989 when she was a little girl while herding water buffalo with her sister in the province of Ratanakkiri, 400 miles north-east of Phnom Penh.
2. The Syrian Gazelle Boy – in 1946, a boy aged around 10 was found in the midst of a herd of gazelles in the Syrian desert, and was only caught with the help of an Iraqi army jeep because he could run at speed.
1. Shamdeo - Shamdeo was a boy who was found in a forest in India in 1972. He was estimated to be about four years old. When he was found, he was playing with wolf cubs.
