Fox kills flamingos in zoo break-in

An ambitious fox swapped the hen-house for the zoo when it snuck into a menagerie and killed 16 pink flamingos at Helsinki Zoo.

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

It climbed a fence to enter the exotic birds' roofless pen in the overnight raid, and then mauled and killed all 16 birds in the flock before escaping, zoo director Jukka Salo said.

The oldest flamingo was 48.

The zoo said the flamingos were usually left inside for the night during cold spring weather and zookeepers were "investigating why they had been left out".