You’d have to be pretty coldhearted not to have been saddened by the deaths of 25 flamingos at the National Zoo, killed by a fox that got in through a baseball-size hole in the fence this week.

       The flamingos — their wings clipped — were sitting ducks. A literal sitting duck was also killed: a Northern pintail duck that was part of the zoo’s collection.

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       The zoo was at pains to point out that the culprit was a wild fox. This was not a case of zoo-animal-on-zoo-animal violence. Nor was it the first time an outsider had infiltrated the zoo, intent on filling its belly or just making mischief.

       Back in 1889, when the zoo was still on the Mall, some “cur dogs” from the neighborhood entered the pen containing an antelope that had only recently arrived from the West. According to The Washington Post, the dogs “so harassed the antelope that it dashed its brains out against the side of the enclosure in a vain effort to escape.”

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       This would not have pleased the Smithsonian, not least because the antelope had been a gift from wealthy Sen. Leland Stanford of California.

       By 1893, the zoo had moved to its present location in Rock Creek Park in Washington. Stray dogs were still a problem, especially for the deer. Perhaps, thought Frank Baker, the zoo’s director, dogs could also be the solution.

       Baker acquired a pair of Russian wolfhounds. The next time “vagrant” dogs entered the zoo, he quite literally released the hounds.

       “Their long, shaggy manes bristled and they went for their quarry like a flash,” wrote The Post. “They had evidently been trained to the work, for one hung back while the other took the lead and headed off the game.”

       Then both closed in on the trespassing dog and … well, it did not end well for him.

       Wrote The Post: “After that there was no more trouble with stray dogs, and now all that is necessary when a dog becomes troublesome to the authorities is to turn out the hounds.”

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       There was the occasional mistake. The wolfhounds once took off after a collie that was wandering near the bear pits. They chased it to an abandoned quarry bordering the zoo, where a cliff overlooked a 75-foot-drop. The collie — “choosing the preferable of two modes of death” — leaped over the edge.

       The collie landed 10 feet down, its fall stopped by a clump of bushes. It was rescued. The dog turned out to be owned by George Brown Goode, the assistant secretary of the Smithsonian.

       Awkward.

       In 1970, two dogs scaled a chain-link fence at the zoo and set upon the herd of waterbuck installed near the great flight cage. The dogs killed two pregnant females and a 3-month-old male.

       According to the Evening Star: “The dogs made no effort to eat their prey.”

       You can’t really blame animals for following their instincts, for being, well, animals. And just because zoo animals may be neighbors, it doesn’t mean they will be neighborly.

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       In 1971, a rhino named Willie broke out of his pen and entered the adjacent enclosure, fatally goring Thigi, one of the zoo’s four recently-acquired bongos, a type of antelope.

       The zoo’s director, T.H. Reed, explained that the 2？-ton Willie had been in rut, the male equivalent of in heat. Reed told the Evening Star that while Willie had been generally docile, “no rhino is very trustworthy.”

       Remember that should a rhino ever try to get you to invest in cryptocurrency.

       Animals aren’t the only ones who have suffered at the hands, er, paws of animals at the National Zoo. Especially in the zoo’s early days — when animal care and control techniques were not as advanced as they are now — keepers were often in danger.

       Such was the case on May 15, 1904, when it was time for Arthur Edwards to feed a coyote that had arrived at the zoo as a pup.

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       Edwards was following what was the protocol at the time — locking himself in the cage while delivering the coyote’s food and trying never to turn his back on the animal — when he was set upon.

       The Washington Times — a rather lurid paper — described the attack in detail, writing that as Edwards was backing out of the enclosure, “the coyote sprang at his throat with a snarl of rage.”

       Edwards managed to get his right hand around the animal’s throat, holding it there as the coyote chomped up and down his arm as if it was an ear of corn.

       By the time another keeper entered the cage with a club and pounded the coyote “almost into insensibility,” Edwards’s right arm was in tatters, his little finger in need of amputation.

       The Times noted that the coyote “has shown all the treachery of his tribe and has been ‘bad’ always.”

       There was no comment from the coyote.