SEOUL, April 10 — 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 35kg, 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 today.
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 yesterday, which was reshared more than 1,400 times.
현재 경찰과 소방, 군이 총력을 다해 안전한 포획과 복귀를 위해 노력하고 있습니다. 부디 어떠한 인명 피해도 발생하지 않길 바라며, 늑구 역시 무사히 안전하게 돌아오길 기원합니다.https://t.co/YpwmM4y1Nt
— 이재명 (@Jaemyung_Lee) April 9, 2026
The incident in Daejeon, about 170km south of the capital Seoul, has caught the imagination of the public and online communities.
A meme coin named “Neukgu” has appeared on decentralised cryptocurrency exchanges, including PumpSwap, with a trading volume of about US$140,000 in the last 24 hours as of today.
An English-language X community for the wolf has also attracted nearly 500 followers.
Born in 2024, Neukgu is part of a programme 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. — Reuters
