h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I can talk telephathic with animals.
(And no I am not a retard!)

I can't. I seem to have a nack for getting cats to follow me, but it's not exactly a very useful skill to have.

I've never thought I was a wolf (or have been), but I was certain there was a big black wolf with red eyes jumping through my window when I first woke up in the morning (well, I was only about six or so). I had to turn the light on so it would go away. Eventually, a nice grey wolf with blue eyes chased the black one away.

Sure your not a retard. The thought never crossed my mind.

My aunt insists that she speaks cat, which may not be too far from the truth since our red tabby is at her side constantly whenever she comes over. He meows and tries to trip her and sits and even does cute kitty tricks like rolling over. All the while he completely ignores the rest of us. Who knows?

I think that sometimes some people have a close connection with animals and can relate to them to a certain extent. Being living and breathing creatures suggests that we are not so different from animals after all. A question that could be asked of Feral children is: How do they survive through illness? Do they not catch illnesses because they are not surrounded by humans? How do they survive on the food the animals bring to them? Perhaps these questions could be answered simply - maybe we are not so different from animals as originally thought. Or maybe we are, but are more socially adaptable.

I read up on a case where they [scientists] tried to reverse the 'Feral children' process by placing a baby chimp into a human family with a 6 month old baby, to see if the chimp was socially adaptable in the way Feral children seemed to be.
The result was a withdrawal of the chimp from the family because, although the chimp was indeed learning from the family to do 'human' things, the human baby, (12 months old by the time they stopped the experiment) began to learn from the chimp and make noises like it and act like it. I found that experiment fascinating and was wondering if anybody had heard about it.

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Email me if you have any more info on Feral children or if you just want to chat...

This whole topic seems to rest on the early developmental stages of children. "Feral Children" is just a part of a bigger story of "learning disorders" which stem from what is and isn't learned at this critical age.

All mammals beyond rodents have a form of learned developement. This is more noticable in animals like wolves, pigs and big cats which have a mix of instinctual behaviour and learned behaviour. For mammals like elephants, dolphins, monkeys and apes their interaction, survival skills and general behaviour is largely learned as infants the same as us. Also beyond human "Feral Children" there are so many stories of mammals rearing the young of different mammals, probably driven by instinct.

I think the fate of human children who grow up in isolation is much worse than that of those raised by animals. At least an animal can give it some grounding and sense of place in the world. Also is it right to entirely remove these children from their adopted animal parents if there is little hope of them learning to be anything else but animal?

Interestingly an animal behaviour expert recently spent 6 months living with wolves and effectively joined the pack. One to watch out for in the future.