The amazing story of Argentinian streetboy saved by gang of wild cats.

From the Daily Mail:

A young boy was kept alive by wild cats while living rough on the streets, it emerged today. The one-year-old ...was discovered by police in Misiones, in Argentina, surrounded by eight of the animals.

The cats snuggled up with him during freezing nights that would otherwise have killed him, doctors believe. The boy was seen eating scraps foraged by his feline friends while they licked him. And they hissed as police approached the child.

Officer Alicia Lorena Lindgvist said: ‘I was walking and noticed a gang of cats sitting very close together. It is unusual to see so many like that so I went for a closer look and that’s where I saw him. The boy was lying at the bottom of a gutter. There were all these cats on top of him licking him because he was really dirty. When I walked over they became really protective and spat at me. They were keeping the boy warm while he slept.’

The officer, who noticed scraps of food near the boy in the Christ King district, also told The Sun: ‘The cats knew he was fragile and needed protecting.’

Police have found the boy’s father who is homeless and said he had lost the boy several days ago while out collecting cardboard to sell. He told officers cats had always been protective of his son.

Many observers have noted the similarity between this story and that portrayed in the 1967 Disney movie 'The Jungle Book', in which a young boy, Mowgli, is raised in the jungle by wolves and is befriended by an amiable bear named Baloo.

Hat tip: Chris