Wild fox kills 16 flamingoes in overnight raid at Helsinki Zoo

Wild fox kills 16 flamingoes at Helsinki Zoo

HELSINKI — An ambitious fox swapped the henhouse for the zoo when it snuck into a menagerie and killed 16 pink flamingoes at the Helsinki Zoo.

The zoo says the fox wandered across ice to reach the zoo, which is on an island near the center of the Finnish capital.

The fox climbed a fence to enter the exotic birds’ roofless pen in the overnight raid. It mauled and killed all 16 birds in the flock before escaping, says Jukka Salo, the zoo’s director.

The oldest flamingo was 48 years old.

Salo said Friday the flamingoes are usually left inside for the night during cold spring weather and zookeepers were “investigating why they had been left out.”

The 120-year-old Helsinki Zoo has 150 animal species and 1,000 plant species from various parts of the world.