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A wolf that escaped from its enclosure in a South Korean zoo has spent three days on the loose, captivating the public, spawning a cryptocurrency meme coin and even prompting a message of concern from the country’s president.
Neukgu, a roughly two-year-old male wolf weighing about 35 kilograms, appeared to have slipped out of the O-World zoo in Daejeon on Wednesday morning by burrowing under a fence, a zoo official said.
A nearby elementary school was closed as a precaution, while more than 100 personnel, including firefighters, police officers and military personnel searched for the wolf, according to fire authorities and a city official.
Drones equipped with thermal imaging cameras were deployed, the city official told Reuters on Friday.
Search efforts were initially hampered by fake and AI-generated images of Neukgu shared on social media, South Korea’s Chosun Daily reported.
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South Korean President Lee Jae Myung weighed in on the social media platform X, urging authorities to ensure a safe outcome.
“I hope no human casualties occur, and I pray that Neukgu also returns home safely,” he wrote in a post on Thursday, which was reshared more than 1,400 times.
There has been concern that the situation could end badly for the wolf, similar to a 2018 incident in which a puma escaped from O-World zoo and was eventually shot — spurring protests about animal captivity.
Animal rights advocacy groups are urging authorities to prevent a repeat incident from happening.
“Although the Geum River Basin Environmental Office has stated that ‘capture’ is prioritized, the presence of hunters means the possibility of the wolf being killed cannot be ruled out, creating a precarious situation,” the group Animal Freedom Solidarity said in a statement Wednesday published by Chosun Daily.
Wayward wolf appears on cryptocurrency exchange
Neukgu’s elusive journey around Daejeon, about 170 kilometers south of the capital Seoul, has caught the imagination of the public and online communities.
A meme coin named Neukgu has appeared on decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges, including PumpSwap, with a trading volume of about $140,000 US in the last 24 hours as of Friday.
An English-language X community for the wolf has also attracted nearly 500 followers.
Born in 2024, Neukgu is part of a program to restore the Korean wolf, a species considered extinct in the wild.
South Korea has seen other high-profile zoo escapes in recent years, including a zebra that was found wandering the streets of Seoul for several hours in 2023 before being caught.
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A zebra named Sero managed to escape from a zoo in Seoul on Thursday, galloping around the South Korean capital for hours before rescue workers tranquilized the young animal in a residential neighbourhood and safely took him back to the zoo.