SEOUL — 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.