Are feral children for real?

[JAR]

I saw an episode a while back of the show "Unsolved Mysteries", which is noted for giving misleading information. This episode was about feral children, who are children that have been raised by animals.

Are feral children for real, or are all cases either unproven or proven to be hoaxes?

 

[Captain_Snort]

There was quite a big article on feral children in the 'Fortean Times' some months back (sorry can't look it out as I just moved house) Their website should have links to some details.

If you look at some of the street kids in some of the larger cities in the 'poorer' parts of the world, is it such a big step for them to become feral?

 

[Dancing David]

err, arr, grr,arr

 

[daver]

They had talked about feral children in some of my classes in college as if they were real. I expect they never were common, and are less common now than previously.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

Two books on the issue with reviews that might provide further data points for googling.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0571201393/102-5408656-2960135?vi=glance

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374384312/102-5408656-2960135

 

[JeffR]

You guys never heard of Tarzan? Jeez!

 

[sorgoth]

Well...

Actually, I'm pretty sure they ARE real. Very rare, of course, but I think it HAS happened a few times.

 

[EdipisReks]

there was a French child who had been abandoned in the 18th (i believe) century. he couldn't speak, and was put under the charge of a scientist. the scientist tried to teach the boy language, and he had a hard time of it. this helped to develop the idea that once you get past a certain age that language becomes more difficult to learn. or so my psych prof told me

 

[Jeff Corey]

I'm too lazy to do links here, but you could google:
Jean-Mark-Gaspard Itard
Le Fauve D'Averyon
The Wild Boy of Averyon

 

[Denise]

I don't think an infant could survive being taken care of by wild animals. An older child? Perhaps, but most cases of feral children have been victims of neglect by the parents from what I have seen.

There does seem to be a narrow window of opportunity in learning spoken language as we have seen with deaf children. The earlier the intervention with hearing aids and such, the better they are able to communicate orally.

 

[BobK]

I've known children that were raised by animals, and wouldn't you know it? They turned out just like their parents.

 

[Cinorjer]

I've never read a convincing case of a feral (raised by animals from a baby) child. The stories tend to be "this child stumbled naked out of the forest and acts like an animal, so what else could it be?" variety. It could be a child recently abandoned or wandered off and with mental deficiencies.

The baby of the human species is totally helpless for much longer than wolfs, apes, and whatever other animal is claimed to have adopted the child. In particular, the wolf mother is driven by instinct to wean the babies long before a child is capable of feeding itself. I'd have to insist the feral child must be a myth without compelling evidence.

 

[Bluegill]

There's a pertinent article in This week's Onion

Wolf Pack Fails To Raise Orphaned Infant

GRAND MARAIS, MN—A pack of timberwolves failed to adopt and raise a human infant abandoned in Pat Bayle State Forest, local rangers reported Monday. "We found the baby starving and near-death in a part of the park with a substantial wolf population," ranger Warren Olafson said. "You'd think one of the wolves would lovingly pick up the child by the nape of the neck and bring it back to the woods to raise it like one of her own, but I guess it just didn't happen that way." Any parents missing an infant are advised to check near the cluster of downed maples midway up the eastern canoe portage.

 

[Genghis Pwn]

Boy adopted by chimps


KANO, Nigeria: A disabled Nigerian boy believed to have been adopted and raised by chimpanzees for 18 months is in care in a specialist children's home in this northern city.

Named Bello by nursing staff at the Tudun Maliki Torrey home in Kano, he was brought to them six years ago by hunters after being found with a chimpanzee family in the Falgore forest, 150km south of Kano, staff told AFP.

Believed to have been aged about two when he was taken in, Bello is probably the son of nomadic ethnic Fulani people who travel through the region, Abba Isa Muhammad, the home's child welfare officer, said.

Mentally and physically disabled, with a misshapen forehead, sloping right shoulder and protruding chest, he was probably abandoned by his parents because of his disabilities, Isa Muhammad said.

Such abandonments of disabled children are common among the nomadic Fulani, a pastoralist people who travel great distances across the west African Sahel region, and in most instances the children die, specialists told AFP.

 

[Bearguin]

You guys never heard of Tarzan? Jeez!

Anyone ever read the original book? I guess it was the era, but the book is so slanted towards the white Europeans, it was incredible.

 

[EdipisReks]

Anyone ever read the original book? I guess it was the era, but the book is so slanted towards the white Europeans, it was incredible.

it's pretty standard for its time period.

 

[Crossbow]

Anyone ever read the original book? I guess it was the era, but the book is so slanted towards the white Europeans, it was incredible.

I have read several of the original Tarzan books and I have a couple of first editions!

While the books are quite thoughtful and exciting, they are also full of racism and nationalism. In other words, they were certainty appropriate fro their time.

 

[JAR]

Anyone ever read the original book? I guess it was the era, but the book is so slanted towards the white Europeans, it was incredible.

I've read the book. Its not that slanted. The director Werner Hertzog was accused of racism for his portrayal of negroid people in his movie "Cobra Verde." I've seen the movie and I can say it that it is not racist. He portrayed many people of negroid stock as slaves and others as being non-slaves in Africa.

If you have negroid people at all in your book or motion picture and they're not portrayed as Harvard educated intellectuals, you will be accused of racism.

 

[jimlintott]

Feral doesn't mean raised by wild animals. It refers to animals that were once domesticated but are now living wild. About 200k north of where I am the community has a terrible problem with feral dogs. They have killed a couple of children.

Think about it, cross species parenting is pretty rare. Omnivores and carnivores would tend to be driven by instinct to eat the child. A human baby left in the woods has very little chance of survival. The crows alone would probably eat it. I'd be very sceptical of the child raised by wild animals claim.

 

[JAR]

I've read the book. Its not that slanted. The director Werner Hertzog was accused of racism for his portrayal of negroid people in his movie "Cobra Verde." I've seen the movie and I can say it that it is not racist. He portrayed many people of negroid stock as slaves and others as being non-slaves in Africa.

If you have negroid people at all in your book or motion picture and they're not portrayed as Harvard educated intellectuals, you will be accused of racism.

To say more on the subject. The worst thing about it when people accuse portrayals of negroid peoples in tribes to be racist is that it implies to white people who already are racist that people who are in tribes are racially inferior to those who are not.