Animals in South Korea

South Korea covers about 100,000 square kilometers of the southern Korean Peninsula, and roughly 70 percent of it is mountains. About half of its people live in the capital region around Seoul, which leaves long forested ranges for bears, foxes and wild boar, even if city edges are never far away. The country runs from those ranges down to river valleys, rice fields and wide tidal flats on the west coast, and out to the volcanic island of Jeju, where Hallasan reaches 1,947 meters as the highest peak. It has four clear seasons, with heavy monsoon rain in late June and July and typhoons in late summer, and cold winters that bring cranes south.

Protecting nature here has largely meant bringing animals back. Jirisan became the first national park in 1967, and by 2023 there were 23. Bears were released there from 2004, and more than 80 lived in the area by 2024. Foxes have returned to Sobaeksan since 2012, and a 2026 DNA survey found 27 otters along the Han River in Seoul, where they had gone unseen for three decades. UNESCO lists Jeju, since 2007, and the Getbol tidal flats, since 2021, both important for wildlife.

A record 18.94 million foreign visitors came in 2025, and most head for cities, but many also reach the coasts and mountains. Whale watching boats leave from Jangsaengpo in Ulsan, and hikers fill the national parks. Wildlife follows these contrasts: bears and foxes in the mountains, otters in the rivers, cranes and birds of prey in the winter fields, and dolphins offshore.

The animal that causes the most real incidents in South Korea today is the wild boar, because it no longer stays in the mountains. With tigers and other large predators gone, boar numbers have grown and the animals now wander into towns and cities. In October 2024 a boar weighing about 100 kilograms entered a subway station in Yangsan and bit a man on the arm before police shot it. In November 2025 a boar of about 120 kilograms injured two people in Busan, one of them seriously. Autumn brings many of these reports, and farmers across the country also lose crops to them.

Bears are a different kind of problem. Their return to the south has brought them closer to villages and farms, and the people most affected so far are beekeepers. One female bear broke into apiaries around Sancheong and Hamyang 14 times, smashing as many as 28 hives at one farm, before being moved to a care center in June 2026. Hikers and mushroom pickers have also reported close encounters, although one report says no attacks by these bears have been recorded in Korea.

Wolves pose almost no risk, since none are left in the wild. The closest thing to a wolf scare in recent years came in 2026, when a wolf escaped from a zoo and spent nine days on the run before being caught and returned.

The best known animals of South Korea are often the ones that came back from the edge. Bears are the most famous case, and Jirisan National Park in the south is the place tied to them, after a restoration that began there in 2004. They are hard to see, but hikers have met them on park trails. Foxes have their own project at Sobaeksan, in the center of the country, where they have been released since 2012 and about 120 were estimated in 2024.

Otters are a more surprising story, because they live right beside people. They swim in the Han River through Seoul and turn up in Ulsan and Busan, where sightings make the local news. Wild boar are also close to towns, and they appear in mountain villages and even city streets, mainly in autumn. Squirrels are common in the forests and parks across the country.

Wolves have a sadder place in this picture. They are remembered as a famous native animal, but they no longer live wild in South Korea and survive through zoos and a captive breeding program. Birds are easier to find. Eagles, falcons and swans are part of the winter birdlife of the country, when rivers, farm fields and coastal wetlands fill with visitors from the north. The cold months from about November to March are the best season for them.