Known as ‘the real-life Mowgli’, because of her unusual upbringing amongst animals just like those in the Jungle Book, is Tippi Degre. Her childhood has caught the imagination of many; having appeared in documentaries of her childhood, she has also written her own autobiography telling her life story in the wild.
Tippi in the Wilderness
In honor of the actress Tippi Hedren, Sylvie Robert and Alain Degre named their beautiful girl Tippi (born June 4, 1990). Tippi Hedren was best-known for her role in the Hitchcock film ‘The Birds’. Living in Namibia at the time, Tippi’s parents knew that their daughter would not have a usual upbringing amongst wild animals in close proximity. For ten years Tippi made friends with wildlife, small and large.
Tippi In The Wilderness
The Power of Choice
For Tipp’s mother, it was never abnormal to raise her daughter in the wild, instead, she saw it as an opportunity for Tippi’s growth and her freedom with mother nature. Not many humans get to experience life in the wild like Sylvie, Robert, and Tippi, who has lived in the wilderness with wild animals for the first ten years of Tippi’s life.
The Power Of Choice
Born With Instinct
From a very young age, Tippi had to adapt to the ways of wildlife. She had to learn to protect her bottle from monkeys. For a small child, she had the knack of knowing how to behave appropriately around feeding elephants. When feeding she would tell her mother ‘ssh…don’t scare the elephants’.
Born With Instinct
Fearless Dynamite
Never intimidated by large animals, as Tippi interacted with them regularly. A connection was so deep with animals much larger than her that no word communication was needed to understand each other. She saw nothing terrifying in them but a friendship.
Fearless Dynamite
A Student Like No Other
So eager to run with the troop, unlike most children who are still crawling at ten months old, Tippi was walking in strides. Spending some time with the animals meant that she had to fend for herself and protect her bottle from naughty monkeys
A Student Like No Other
Survival Instincts
It goes without saying that living in the wild with a child is dangerous. Instead of learning playground safety, Tippi had to learn to survive potential threats from wild animals. Sylvie and Robert taught their daughter what she needed to look out for in animals to better protect herself. Learning how to read animal behavior and body language was essential for Tippi, while her parents still disallowed dangerous activities.
Survival Instincts
Arbitrary Wildlife Behaviour
Tippi had many captured moments with her lion cub friend called Mufasa. In just over a year of their bond, Mufasa grew into a big lion becoming a little overwhelming for Tippi’s parents. On Visiting days, out of excitement, they would rub faces against each other, however, Mufasa’s tail seemed strong enough to harm Tippi. This led to a separation between the two pals.
Arbitrary Wildlife Behaviour
Safety……
Living in the Kalahari deserts themselves, before Tippi was born, the parents never thought their lifestyle was abnormal to raise a child. They lived with meerkats and knew first hand what an amazing life Tippi would have out in nature with animals.
Safety
Loyalty Locked in Friendship
When Tippi was one year old, she met her elephant friend Abu for the first time. Tippi was never intimidated by the huge size of Abu in comparison to her’s. They would lock eyes and have deep kiddy conversations, with a bond that left her parents amazed. Such a bond builds a friendship that would last a lifetime.
Loyalty Locked In Friendship
Expanding Her Social Circle
Tippi had made another friend, a leopard called J&B. Adopted by a local farmer after his mother’s death, J&B would act like a domesticated pet only around Tippi. Never losing his instincts to hunt and kill, J&B attempted to viciously attack another child, and a single command to ‘stop’ from Tippi, would see a child saved from a gruesome attack.
Expanding Her Social Circle
No Words Needed
Forever demonstrating an incredible connection with animals, Tippi allowed her parents the opportunity to document her unique and rare childhood. Tippi believed that all humans each have special gifts, her’s was to communicate with living creatures and creating bonds with all kinds of animals.
No Words Needed
Genuine Hugs
If you can ask any child, would they touch a bullfrog and you will get a cute and disgusting response. Unlike Tippi, she embraced all kinds of animals in their most natural form, yukky and weird. Her parents captured this beautiful moment as she gave her bullfrog friend a tight squeeze.
Genuine Hugs
Uber in The Wild
Naturally, humans are considered predators in the ostrich family, if they are not on defense mode, they keep well away from us. Despite that, Tippi and her family met a tame ostrich living in a farm nearby. She enjoyed riding her two-legged friend at optimum speeds, with her hair blowing backward. Thankfully ostrich isn’t designed to take flight, right?
Uber In The Wild
The Southern Indigenous Culture
Sylvie and Robert spent a great deal of time traveling throughout Namibia, working on projects, filming tribes for their documentary of the northern Namibia San Bushmen. On their quest, they met a number of bushmen from the Himba Tribe in the Kalahari. This often gave Tippi the opportunity to make new friends within the tribe, sometimes spending an entire day with the bushman children. She learned their essential skills, like how to gather roots and berries to eat and finding water in the desert land. Tippi would go as far as learning the bushman language and their ways of hunting using the traditional bow and arrow.
The Southern Indigenous Culture
A Warm Family Welcome
As the Degre family moved around from tribe to tribe, very different to the European reception, Tippi would be immediately accepted and gelled in with the tribe’s children easily. They loved how different she was in skin color and hair texture, after all, Tippi was a fun character.
A Warm Family Welcome
Coastal Birdlife Breeze
Tippi’s connection to animals extends to birdlife, and this is shown on the Seabird Islands off the coast of South Africa. Her parents wanted to see the islands and so they went on to see them. Completely at one with the birds flock, Tippi would run between them fully integrated with the bird colonies as one of them.
Coastal Birdlife Breeze
A Passion Kiss
What seems like a horrific incident to us, to Tippi kissing a snake was as normal as kissing a human friend. Even snakes were not immune to Tippi’s charming affection, we see this in the close shot as they lean in for a peck kiss.
A Passion Kiss
Lion Cuddles
Every child enjoys a good nap and cuddles with a teddy bear after a long day of playing. In the photo we see a typical shot of Tippi enjoying a cuddle with her lion cub friend, mutually content during their nap time.
Lion Cuddles
Oversized Juice Bottle
We all know the easiest way to make friends is by sharing food and drinks. With no restrictions on feeding animals in the wild, as you and I have in a public Zoo, Tippi makes new friends by sharing his goodies with animals. Here she shares her oversized juice bottle with a Zebra, creating a bond that comes naturally to them both.
Oversized Juice Bottle
Elephant’s Trunk Ride
Traveling on a huge elephant was an everyday thing for Tippi. She shares a special trust and loving bond with elephants as we know. Entrusting her safety on an elephant is shown in a picture blissfully cradled by the elephant’s trunk.
Elephants Trunk Ride
Slip and Splash
In a photo fully depicting mutual trust, as a fully integrated member of the elephant herd, Tippi seems to be having a time of her life. Over and above carrying her around, Tippi joins the herd during their bath and cooling downtime slip and splashing. Her excited screams and splashes never phased the herd as something unusual but saw her as a family member in the puddle.
Slip And Splash
It’s Okay To Be Different
Happy and content with the lifestyle she lived. Tippi lived a totally different lifestyle to that of a normal girl her age. She never wore a dress out in the wild, never at all, instead she wore animal printed clothes. She carried a tree bark case instead of a pretty pink purse. She lived and played with lion cubs instead of teddy bears.
Its Okay To Be Different
Conversations With a Monkey
One of the most intelligent animals in the wild is a monkey, with close human traits and behaviors. Tippi was no stranger to the monkey family as well. In this picture, she is interacting with a monkey in more human contact, both touching and holding hands.
Conversations With A Monkey
Hanging With My Shell Friends
As she grew and got to a kinder age, Tirri started practical homeschooling. With a vast environment, her parents were spoilt for choice with typical examples in the animal kingdom when they needed to demonstrate lessons to teach Tippi. The turtles are a great example of how they taught Tippi about patience, ever heard of the phrase “Patience is a virtue”. It became apparent that they made the right decision about Tippi’s education after she attended a public school.
Hanging With My Shell Friends
Tons Of Love
They are not ordinary herds, they have a tradition and culture that is stemmed in loyalty. Eight to thirteen feet tall, weighing up to seven tons, and a brain weighing up to 5 kg, which is responsible for its emotional awareness. Tippi is a member of this remarkable and exclusive cartel, a bond shared when riding, bathing and in this picture as we see them connect.
Tons Of Love
Tippi’s Childhood Portfolio
What a privilege to have your parents as professional photographers. As on-set photographers, they fully recorded their daughter’s unusual childhood experience. Tippi’s portfolio records her kinder life with incredible wild animals in the true wild of Africa.
Tippis Childhood Portfolio
On Top Of The World
The reality about the world we live in today is that young children like Tippi, only get to see animals in circus and zoos. Where animals are trained and coerced to perform for the amusement of the public. Tippi had the natural ability to mentally and emotionally connect with animals, and because of this connection, she would ride elephants and ostriches without force.
On Top Of The World
Love For All
It didn’t really matter what kind of animal it was, or even how it looked, Tippi loved them all equally. Where you’d expect a parent to protect their child in the sight of potential danger, as demonstrated in the image. Tippi’s parents understood how nature works, and how well integrated their daughter was with animals from birth.
Love For All
Stage Fright?
As a teenager, Tippi found herself returning to her childhood home to shoot a documentary with Discovery Channel. This was an opportunity of a lifetime, which had tippy’s parents filled with pride. However, Tippi found it challenging to connect with her old friends through the lens of a camera, combining the wild heart of Africa. Understandably she found herself demoralized and extremely exhausted as they wrapped the documentary.
Stage Fright
Tamed Orphans
In Africa, farmers rescued orphaned animals on their huge farms, of up to twenty thousand hectares of land. Tippi’s parents admitted that some of the animals had already been tamed before shooting the documentary. It is because of this reason that Tippi was able to connect and interact with these animals so easily.
Tamed Orphans
A Social Bee
Despite the animals’ reputation, Tippi would see the good in all animals and relied on that instinct to form a relationship. She approached and connected with all kinds of animal species, as shown in the picture when she embraces this little creature with a genuine hug.
A Social Bee
One Kiss From Pumbaa
Living amongst wild animals all this time, it is almost unbelievable that Tippi was only bitten once during her childhood. She was bitten by a meerkat, earning her a middle name Okanti, which means meerkat. Her mother Sylvie, says the only other close call was when a jealous baboon named Cindy plucked out a handful of Tippi’s hair.
One Kiss From Pumbaa
My Story
Eventually, the world caught up to Tippi’s story, as a result, a number of documentaries were made telling the life and experience of young Tippi in the wild. Screened on Discovery Channel, ‘Le Monde Selon Tipp’i meaning The World According to Tippi was screened in 1997. In 2002, Tippi en Afrique was released, and with six episodes ‘Around the World with Tippi’ was released in 2004.
My Story
Change of Scenery
After ten years of living in the wild, Tippi and her parents moved to the city to join society as we know it. This was a huge adjustment for Tippi as she never spent a day with an animal friend in the wild, and had a vast space of land in which she lived freely. She felt that she had left the entire African continent for high concrete walls and metal bars, with no animals.
Change Of Scenery
A Budgie To Help Adjust
Adjusting to the new way of living was a struggle for Tippi, missing her wild animal friends. This made it hard for her to make friends with the young girls from her public school in Paris. To try and cheer her up, her parents got her a Bungie, a companion to be with her everywhere she went even on the metro.
A Budgie To Help Adjust
Proud Namibian
Grateful for her unusual childhood experiences, a Namibian and proud African as stated in her own website from childhood. Tippi has expressed how she intends to be a citizen of Namibia and wanting to be an ambassador for Nabia when she becomes of age. She has truly lived a real-life chronicle of Mowgli.
Proud Namibian
Learnt To Capture From My Parents
Eventually, Tippi adjusted to the city life in Paris, and after attending public school she went on to study film at La Sorbonne University, following in her parent’s footsteps. She is known to be supervising tigers at Fort Boyard on the west coast of France.
Learnt To Capture From My Parents
The Wild: Her First Home
Although Tippi understood that life outside of the jungle would be different, it was quite an adjustment for her. Her first trip back to Africa was to film a documentary for the Discovery Channel. Which allowed her to reconnect with the tribes, wildlife and beautiful African lands. Various interviews were are recorded about her revisits to Africa, and she too has written a book, “Tippi: My Book of Africa.”
The Wild Her First Home
More Like Her
In the last ten years, several children were literally raised by animals. A young boy from Chile was found in a pack of dogs in 2001. Authorities say the dogs shielded him and taught him how to scavenge for food as they did. Marina Chapman was abducted and then abandoned to fend for herself. She lived with a group of capuchin monkeys for five years. Marina was taught by the monkeys how to hunt birds and rabbits for food.
More Like Her