A British zoo has been forced to separate five foul-mouthed parrots who wouldn’t stop swearing at visitors after they encouraged each other to keep cursing.
Billy, Eric, Tyson, Jade, and Elsie who all joined Lincolnshire Wildlife Centre’s colony of 200 gray parrots in August, were removed from view this week, The Associated Press reports.
“We are quite used to parrots swearing, but we’ve never had five at the same time,” said the zoo’s chief executive, Steve Nichols. “Most parrots clam up outside, but for some reason these five relish it.”
According to Nichols, none of the zoo’s visitors complained about the parrots, and most found them amusing.
“When a parrot tells you to ‘f-— off’ it amuses people very highly,” he said Tuesday. “It’s brought a big smile to a really hard year.”
Nichols said the parrots have been separated to save children’s ears.
They were moved to different areas of the park so they don’t “set each other off,” he said.
Nichols told BBC News that the parrots “swear to trigger reaction or a response,” so seeing people shocked or laughing only encourages the birds to curse more.
“With the five, one would swear and another would laugh and that would carry on,” he said.
“I’m hoping they learn different words within colonies,” Nichols added. “But if they teach the others bad language and I end up with 250 swearing birds, I don’t know what we’ll do,” he added.
