Wolf Escapes Zoo in South Korea, Forcing Massive Search With 300+ People and Drones
Authorities are still trying to find an escaped zoo wolf in South Korea.
There’s a wolf on the loose in South Korea—and despite drones, soldiers and more than 300 searchers, nobody can track it down.
Authorities in the city of Daejeon launched a massive multi-agency operation after a wolf escaped from O-World Theme Park, triggering school closures, a flood of false sightings and a search effort that’s still coming up empty.
Here’s what makes this story even wilder: the wolf basically engineered its own jailbreak.
According to The Korea Times, zookeepers discovered the animal was missing during a routine morning check on Wednesday. When they reviewed surveillance footage, the answer was right there on camera—the wolf had dug under its enclosure to escape.
An O-World official confirmed the details:
“We conduct daily inspections of each enclosure before opening, and one wolf was missing. After checking CCTV, we confirmed it had dug through the soil at the bottom of the enclosure and escaped.”
The escaped wolf is a male named Neukgu, born in 2024 and weighing approximately 30 kg (about 65 pounds). He’s part of a captive breeding program at O-World. Wolves were declared extinct in the wild in South Korea in the 1990s due to historical hunting, and zoos like O-World maintain breeding programs with the long-term goal of species conservation and potential reintroduction into natural habitats.
A search operation that’s hard to believe
The response has been enormous. According to officials from the Daejeon fire headquarters, more than 300 people—including firefighters, police officers and military personnel—have been deployed to locate the animal.
Authorities brought in drones equipped with cameras and heat-detecting technology to scan the area, but rain forced some operations to be temporarily halted. Meanwhile, officials reported receiving more than 100 tips about possible sightings, though many were later determined to be incorrect or based on false information.
A nearby school was shut down as a precaution.
“Daejeon Sanseong elementary school is closed today following the escape of a wolf from a zoo yesterday,” a spokesperson for the Daejeon metropolitan office of education told AFP.
If this feels familiar, there’s a reason
South Korea has been here before—sort of. In 2023, a zebra that escaped from a Seoul zoo gained widespread attention after roaming city streets before being safely recaptured without injury. That incident went massively viral, with images of a striped animal trotting through urban traffic capturing attention worldwide.
This time, the stakes feel a bit different. A zebra wandering through Seoul is a quirky visual. A wolf loose near schools and neighborhoods? That’s enough to close classrooms and deploy the military.
As of the latest updates, the wolf has not been recaptured. No confirmed sightings have been reported despite the massive search operation and the avalanche of tips pouring in from the public.
More than 300 people are still out looking. Drones are still flying when weather allows. Schools in the area remain on alert. And somewhere in or around Daejeon, a young wolf named Neukgu—who outsmarted his enclosure by simply digging underneath it — is still out there.
The search continues.
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