A lone wolf has sparked a huge search effort in South Korea’s Daejeon city after it escaped its zoo enclosure, forcing public emergency alerts and the closure of a primary school.
The animal was pictured roaming the streets of the city, which lies about 150km south of the capital Seoul and is home to more than 1.5 million people, after escaping from a zoo.
The Daejeon fire department said some 300 people, including 35 firefighters, 116 police and military personnel, and 100 zoo employees were involved in an ongoing operation to capture the wolf before it did any harm. However, it was still on the loose as of Thursday morning, authorities said.
The male wolf, two years old and weighing nearly 30kg, escaped from the O-World zoo on Wednesday.
Footage released by the fire department showed the animal walking down a street before crossing a road.
An elementary school located less than 30 minutes away from the zoo was closed as a safety measure.
“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 said, AFP reported.
Zoo officials confirmed that one of their wolves had gone missing after escaping its enclosure.
“We conduct daily inspections of each enclosure before opening and one wolf was missing,” an official told the Korea Times.
“After checking CCTV, we confirmed it had dug through the soil at the bottom of the enclosure and escaped.”
The wolf damaged the zoo’s installed fence before fleeing, a fire official said.
"We deployed drone cameras early in the morning but had to pull them back due to the ongoing rain," the official added.
The city government sent an emergency text message alerting residents to the presence of the wolf.
“One wolf has escaped from O-World and is currently being searched for within the zoo,” it read. “Visitors and nearby residents are advised to exercise caution.”
This is not the first time a wild animal has escaped a city zoo in South Korea and sparked a major recapture operation. In 2023, a male zebra called Sero went missing from a Seoul zoo and walked and trotted around the capital’s busy streets before being tranquilised by emergency workers and returned to its enclosure without injury.
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