Despite the harrowing accounts in her series, Fullerton-Batten’s images tell a story of survival. “All human beings need human contact, but for these children their whole life becomes focused on a survival instinct,” she says, asking “if those living in the companionship of wild animals were perhaps better off than those whose young lives were spent with no companionship at all.” Ivan ran away from his family at the age of four, feeding scraps of food to a pack of wild dogs and eventually becoming a kind of pack leader. He lived on the streets for two years, before he was taken to a children’s home. In his book Savage Girls And Wild Boys: A History Of Feral Children, [Michael Newton wrote that](http://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/jan/19/extract) “The relationship worked perfectly, far better than anything Ivan had known among his fellow humans. He begged for food, and shared it with his pack. In return, he slept with them in the long winter nights of deep darkness, when the temperatures plummeted.” Fullerton-Batten believes the ‘feral child’ can reveal much that is hidden within seemingly civilised societies – a city can be as inhospitable as a forest. “Ivan ran away so it was a choice he made, not to be at home – but his home must have been so bad that he would rather be on the streets with a pack of dogs,” she says. “I was trying not to be exploitative. Three of the cases inspired charities – I wanted to raise awareness about what is still going on.” (Credit: Julia Fullerton-Batten)