Commuters in South Korea faced an unexpected reckless driver on Tuesday: Tadori the ostrich.
According to Reuters, the 4-year-old male ostrich escaped a zoo in Seongnam, South Korea, and found his way onto the city’s streets, where the giant bird encountered heavy traffic.
Ostriches are the fastest-running birds in the world,per the Smithsonian National Zoo. Tadori used that speed to his advantage, leading local authorities on a wild ostrich chase through Seongnam’s congested streets.
Several onlookers captured footage of the flightless bird dodging cars and running across lanes of traffic. In one clipshared on Instagram, Tadori zigzags across a busy road with more than five lanes of traffic. At one point, the ostrich appears to run into a vehicle before picking himself back up and sprinting around the road again.
Tadori the zoo ostrich after his escape onto the streets of Seongnam, South Korea.@hola._.m/LOCAL NEWS X/TMX
@hola._.m/LOCAL NEWS X/TMX
Remarkably, the ostrich didn’t sustain any serious injuries while dodging cars and returned to the zoo in stable condition, the zoo’s owner, Choi Yun-joo, told Reuters.
The owner adds that the recent death of Tadori’s friend may have triggered his escape.
“His only friend, a female ostrich Tasooni, passed away about a month ago. Guess that has been tough on Tadori,” Choi said.
Tadori the zoo ostrich in the streets of Seongnam, South Korea.@hola._.m/LOCAL NEWS X/TMX
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Tadori is not the first bird to escape a zoo. In Feb. 2023, Flaco, a Eurasian eagle-owl,managed to get out of the Central Park Zooafter someone tampered with the stainless steel mesh surrounding his exhibit. After numerous attempts to capture the bird — who didn’t stray far from Central Park — failed, Flaco was allowed to live life as a free bird with the whole of New York City as his new home. Unfortunately, Flaco’s reign over New York ended on Feb. 23when the owl died after colliding with an apartment building windowin the city’s Upper West Side.
source: people.com
