A group of cool parrots housed together at a UK zoo had to be split up because they learned to swear and, more importantly, seemed to really be enjoying it.
These five foul-mouthed birds, who go by: Billy, Tyson, Elsie, Jade, and Eric, arrived at the Lincolnshire Wildlife Park back in August via donations from five different people in the same week. It was there that they joined a colony consisting of 200 grey parrots, and it was shortly after they met up that they all started encouraging one another to curse.
Now parrots swearing is, apparently, more common than one might think, but the real issue appears to be that such a large group was chiming in all at once.
“We saw it very quickly – we are quite used to parrots swearing but we’ve never had five at the same time,” said the park's CEO, Steve Nichols, according to The Guardian. “Most parrots clam up outside, but for some reason these five relish it.”
In an effort to rectify the issue the zoo split them up into different areas so they don't “set each other off."
This decision was not precipitated by any complaints from visitors (quite the opposite, actually), but was instead an attempt to prevent youngsters from hearing what the parrots had to say. It was also an effort to get the fivesome to learn instinctual calls from their fellow birds. As it was, Nichols had said that "I get called a fat t**t" every time he walked past the group.
Anyway, according to Nichols, the park's patrons seemed to like it.
"The visitors were giving them as much back as what they were giving to them," he added.
“People have come to us but they think it’s highly amusing, we haven’t had one complaint. When a parrot tells you to fuck off, it amuses people very highly. It’s brought a big smile to a really hard year."
