// BBC WORLD NEWS — MONDO
Celebrity shark guided out of South Korea canal refuses to swim out to sea
Watch: BBC follows operation to rescue shark stranded in South Korean canal
A famed dusky shark in South Korea is still lingering near a canal that it was guided out of on Wednesday.
The shark, nicknamed Bukangi, became an unlikely sensation after it was spotted swimming in a canal in the south-eastern port city of Busan last month.
For weeks, rescuers tried in vain to get her back to the open sea, using nets to move it out.
On Thursday, authorities said they had reinforced barriers to prevent Bukangi from returning. But it has yet to swim out into the open sea, and instead has been seen circling back repeatedly to the mouth of the waterway.
In a livestreamed operation on Wednesday, rescue workers took more than eight hours to delicately guide the three-metre-long (10ft) shark with a net towards open water in a harbour.
Hundreds of adoring fans gathered at the park overlooking the canal, cheering and waving goodbye to the shark.
But then, on Thursday morning, Bukangi reportedly swam back into the canal after breaking through a barrier installed by authorities.
For some time, Bukangi was trapped in a tight space between two layers of nets in the canal.
Rescuers freed it by removing the outer layer, and have since fortified the remaining layer of nets to prevent it from going back in.