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Wolf escape highlights tragic history of a nearly extinct Korean wildlife species

Published: 10 Apr. 2026, 18:34

Wolf pups born in April 2020 at Daejeon’s O-World await visitors on June 3, 2020. [NEWS1]

Koreans are searching for a lone wolf — but Neukgu was never meant to be alone.

Neukgu, a wolf that escaped from Daejeon’s O-World zoo on Wednesday, is a descendant of wolves brought from Russia as part of a long-running effort to restore the Korean wolf — a species now virtually extinct in the country.

The wolf is one of the offspring of seven wolves imported in 2008 for the restoration project. The Korean wolf, Canis lupus coreanus, is classified as a Class I endangered species by the Environment Ministry — the highest level of protection reserved for species at risk of extinction — but is considered functionally extinct in the wild here.

Wolves became the apex predator on the Korean Peninsula after tigers disappeared in the early 1900s. Large-scale eradication campaigns during the 1910-45 Japanese colonial occupation, carried out under the pretext of eliminating harmful animals, sharply reduced their numbers. Disease later accelerated their decline. The last known wild wolf in Korea died at Seoul Grand Park in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi, in 1997.

Although wolves belong to the canine family, they differ from dogs in that their tails hang downward rather than curling upward. They typically live in family-based packs of five to eight individuals and follow a hierarchical social structure centered on a dominant male.

Wolf pups behave playfully like puppies toward their keeper at Daejeon’s O-World zoo in on June 3, 2020. [YONHAP]

“The wolf’s range is extremely wide, like that of foxes, and there have been no cases of escaped wolves returning on their own, so it will not be easy to find,” Cho Yeong-seok, a professor at the Department of Biology Education at Daegu University, said.

Search operations have been ongoing since Wednesday in wooded hills behind O-World, involving police, military personnel and special forces.

Authorities have deployed drones equipped with high-resolution thermal imaging cameras to locate the animal, but to no avail. Five luring traps containing food have also been placed around the area to encourage the wolf’s return. The team has been playing recordings of howling by the wolves Neukgu used to live with.

The zoo's visitor announcement recordings, which the wolf has heard since birth in January 2024, are also being played.

Firefighters search for the escaped wolf at O-World in Daejeon on the morning of April 9, the second day after the animal escaped. [YONHAP]

Concerns have spread on social media after reports that hunters were deployed in the search, with some users voicing opposition to killing the wolf.

“Humans should not kill an animal that escaped due to human error,” one user wrote. “It must not be shot. Let it return safely.”

Animal rights group Korea Animal Welfare Association also referenced a 2018 incident at O-World in which an escaped puma was shot dead after about four hours.

“An accident caused by facility issues must not again lead to the death of an animal,” the group stated.

A wolf escaped from a nearby theme park roams in the urban streets of Daejeon on April 8. [DAEJEON FIRE HEADQUARTERS]

“Personnel from a harmful wildlife response team have been deployed, but we are trying to capture the wolf without killing it,” an official from the Geum River Basin Environmental Office said.

Heavy spring rain has complicated the search effort. Rain began falling across much of the country on Thursday morning, including Daejeon, which had received 3 millimeters (0.1 inches) as of 3 p.m. Thursday.

These conditions are likely to hinder search operations using thermal-imaging drones and tracking dogs, making it more difficult to locate the wolf during the critical window when it is less likely to have escaped far.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY CHON KWON-PIL [[email protected]]