Mowgli in Real Life: Can Animals Really Raise a Human? 0 11

In well-known films and literary works, such as “Tarzan” and “Mowgli,” there is sometimes a plot about children left by their parents for various reasons in the forest. Despite all the difficulties, these children survive and become part of the animal community in which they were raised. Such cases have indeed occurred in real life.

There are various reasons why children may find themselves alone in the forest. Most often, they cannot survive as they lack the necessary skills. However, in rare cases, animals take on the care of human children. To date, there have been more than 20 officially documented cases where children were raised by animals such as wolves, primates, bears, sheep, and even ostriches.

Despite the number of cases where children have successfully survived in the wild among animals, returning them to human society is usually impossible. If a child has spent the first years of life with human parents and has managed to acquire communication skills and language, they have a chance to relearn to speak and socialize after returning to humans.

However, there are known cases where children entered animal society before the age of one and spent all their early years there. When such children were eventually found by humans, they often could not adapt to human society: feral children frequently ran back into the forest or jungle. This fact emphasizes that the first 3-4 years of a child's life are the most critical for their development.