A school in South Korea has been closed due to a wolf that escaped from a zoo

The Guardian reported on the incident.

The story reads almost like a ready-made plot for a thriller. On the morning of 8 April, a young male wolf escaped from an enclosure at O-World. The animal was born in 2024, weighs around 30 kilograms and had been living in captivity. The zoo is located in Daejeon, approximately 150 kilometres south of Seoul.

The escape turned out to be very real, rather than just a rumour circulating on social media. According to O-World, the wolf dug a hole under the enclosure and made its way out. The park then evacuated visitors, closed its doors and alerted the emergency services. The city authorities issued an emergency alert.

The events then quickly spread beyond the park itself. Local media showed footage of the wolf running along a road amidst urban buildings. By 9 April, the authorities confirmed that the animal had still not been caught. As a result, Daejeon Sanseong Elementary School was closed for the day for safety reasons.

The scale of the search for such an incident turned out to be far from symbolic. Initially, there was talk of over 300 participants in the operation, but later the Korea JoongAng Daily reported that the number had risen to around 400 people. The search involved the police, firefighters, the military, SWAT teams, park staff, thermal imaging drones and search dogs. Some of the drones had to be temporarily withdrawn due to rain and safety concerns.

There is another important detail for the reader here: experts interviewed by the Korean media suggest that a wolf raised by humans is more likely to be in a state of panic and try to hide than to seek contact with people. But it is precisely because of the unpredictability of its behaviour that the authorities do not want to take any risks.

There is another telling aspect to this story. In 2023, footage of a zebra that had escaped from a zoo in Seoul and roamed the city for several hours went viral. Now South Korea has a new viral story, only this time it is far more nerve-wracking: instead of a zebra, a wolf is running through the city, and the search operation has already extended to a school and an entire amusement park.

For now, the main mystery is simple: exactly where is the animal hiding, and how much longer will the search continue? According to the latest reports, the wolf has not yet been caught.

As a reminder, in the state of Assam, an express train to Delhi collided with a herd of dozens of elephants; among the dead were baby elephants.