Real Stories Of Feral Children Told With Incredible Photos

The images and the stories you’re about to see might look like an episode from unsolved mysteries, but that’s not the case. The images are recreated, but the stories are real. Julia Fullerton-Batten is a German-born, London-based photographer and this is her newest project.

The whole idea of this project is to show the world how it looks like to grow up under unusual circumstances. But the word unusual is probably not good enough to describe the fate of these feral children.

We all have bad childhood memories, and some of us didn’t even had a happy childhood at all. But this is on a different level. The London-based photographer was inspired by The Girl With No Name: The Incredible Story of a Child Raised by Monkeys book.

1The inspiration

“I found that there were quite a number of these. Some cases resulted from children becoming lost, snatched by wild animals, and especially those left or neglected by their parents. The documented cases exist over four of the five continents,” she said.

Image Source: amazon.com

2The Lobo Wolf girl from Mexico, 1845-1852

This sounds like Mowgli, but this is not a cartoon. This girl was living with wolfs, and she was seen running on all fours while hunting a heard of goats. She was even captured once, but she managed to escape and return to the wild.

Image Source: boredpanda.com

3The Marinna Chapman girl from Colombia, 1959

Marina had a quite interesting life indeed. She was kidnaped at the age of 5 and left in the jungle by her kidnappers. She managed to survive thanks to a group of capuchin monkeys. She was basically raised as a monkey as well. She learned to climb trees and she ate bananas, roots and berries. She couldn’t speak when she was found by a group of hunters who later sold her to a brothel. She managed to escape from the brothel and ended up being enslaved by a mafia-style family. Her life changed when she was saved by a neighbor who adopted her as well. She moved to Bradford, Yorkshire in the UK in 1977 and how she’s married and has her own family.

Image Source: www.lensculture.com

4The Shamdeo boy from India, 1972

It seems like humans can easily get along with wolfs and dogs. The Shamdeo boy was living with a pack of wolfs since he was only 4 years old. He ate and behave like a wolf. Just like the Oxana girl, when the boy was discovered he changed his diet to raw meat to cooked meat but he still had problems with social and verbal skills. He only managed to learn the some sign language, and he never talked.

Image Source: unimedia.info

5The Bird Boy from Russia, 2008

You don’t need to live in the jungle to lose your human touch. The Bird Boy lived with his mother in a tiny, two-bedroom apartment. But he wasn’t alone. His mother had plenty of pet birds, and even though she didn’t abuse the boy or mistreated him, she didn’t speak to him at all. She treated him just like one her birds. He couldn’t speak when he was found, he only chirped and waved his hands and arms when he wasn’t understood. He’s now released into child care by his mother and doctors are working hard on his rehabilitation.

Image Source: photoby.co