Wildlife in South Korea

Cheorwon, a farming plain in Gangwon Province right against the border, is the country’s crane capital. Red-crowned cranes, the tall white birds with a red cap that appear on Korean paintings and the 500 won coin, arrive from late October and stay until about late February, alongside larger numbers of white-naped cranes. Much of the feeding area is inside the Civilian Control Zone, so you see them on organised crane tours or DMZ tours from Cheorwon, which pass military checkpoints with your passport. Book a few days ahead and bring binoculars; the birds are wary.

In the south, Suncheon Bay is the main wintering site for hooded cranes, which feed on the fields behind the reed beds from November to March. Tours to the DMZ from Seoul focus on history, but the Han River estuary near Paju and the island of Ganghwa are good for wintering geese and cranes too.

Suncheon Bay is the most visitor-friendly nature site in Korea: boardwalks through broad beds of reeds, which turn gold in late October and November, and a hill viewpoint at Yongsanjeon over the S-shaped channel at sunset. Fiddler crabs and mudskippers cover the mud in summer.

Upo Wetland in Changnyeong, the largest inland wetland in Korea, is a set of shallow lakes and marsh with walking trails, observation towers and dawn mist across the water. It is also home to a restoration project for the crested ibis, extinct in the Korean wild for decades, now released in small numbers. Nearby Junam Reservoir, outside Changwon, is one of the best places for wintering white-naped cranes, bean geese and swans.

The Yellow Sea coast has some of the largest tidal flats in the world, protected in part as the Getbol, Korean Tidal Flats World Heritage site, from Gochang to the island of Yubu-do in Seocheon. In spring and autumn they feed tens of thousands of migrating shorebirds, including great knot and, in tiny numbers, the critically endangered spoon-billed sandpiper. Visit two hours either side of high tide, when the birds are pushed close to shore.

In winter, Cheonsu Bay near Seosan and the Geum River estuary near Gunsan hold huge flocks of Baikal teal, which rise at dusk in swirling murmurations. Black-faced spoonbills, one of the rarest waterbirds in Asia, breed on rocky islets off Incheon and Ganghwa and feed in the estuaries from spring to autumn.

Small islands are where Korean birders go in May and again in September and October, when exhausted migrants drop onto any patch of trees. Eocheongdo, off Gunsan, is the most famous; Socheongdo in the far northwest, Heuksando and Gageodo in the southwest all have long species lists. Accommodation is basic minbak (family guesthouses) and ferries cancel in bad weather. Baengnyeongdo, near the North Korean coast, also has spotted seals hauled out on its rocks from spring to autumn.

Asiatic black bears were almost wiped out in South Korea; a reintroduction that began in 2004 has brought around 90 back to Jirisan and nearby Deogyusan. You are very unlikely to see one, but follow the park’s bear signs. Seoraksan has the long-tailed goral, a wild goat-antelope of the cliffs, and the parks are full of Siberian chipmunks, woodpeckers and, in May, azaleas on the ridges of Sobaeksan. Our national parks guide covers the trails.

A small resident population of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins lives along Jeju’s west and southwest coast, and you can sometimes see them from the coastal road near Sinchang and Daejeong, especially in the morning. Boat tours run from the southwest, but watching from shore is calmer for the animals. Inland, the gotjawal forests on old lava flows and the slopes of Hallasan have Jeju’s own plants and birds, including fairy pitta in summer.

Crane-watching in Cheorwon and the Civilian Control Zone needs an organised tour; elsewhere you can go independently by bus and taxi. Birds Korea, a conservation group, publishes site guides and recent sightings in English. Wetlands and parks are free to enter, though Suncheon Bay charges for its combined ticket with the national garden.

Outbreaks of avian flu in winter sometimes close crane and waterfowl sites at short notice. In summer, ticks in long grass carry SFTS, a serious virus, so wear long trousers and use repellent. Vipers live in the mountains and wild boar roam the forest edges; give both space.