Wild Child

While recently reading about the Jersey Devil, I discovered a link to an article on feral children. Reading some of the entries mentioned in that article, I discovered further proof (as if I needed any) that animals really are better than people. (I make a vast, sweeping, and even gross generalization here, I know. I actually do know some very nice people, and a few kind of mean animals, so I recognize the flaw in my sentiment. But still. Overall.)

Here’s what blows me away: first of all, that parents abandon their own children -- okay, that’s shocking enough, but sadly, not as shocking as it should be these days; the really astounding part is that animals take them in -- something that isn’t even of their own species -- and raise them!

Do the animals stop to consider whether or not there will be enough milk to go around, or juicy berries, or yummy rabbits, or whatever? Apparently not.

So, at least in these cases, the animals definitely win the moral tug-of-war.

A previously unknown (to me) and intriguing detail mentioned in several of the cases wherein children were raised by wolves or wild dogs is that the children were found to have exceptional senses of sight, smell, and hearing. I can think of several reasons why this would be so, but it never occurred to me that it would be. I think that’s fascinating.

I guess that’s why I was a psych major in college.