Five African grey parrots at a British wildlife park have caused quite a lot of heads to turn.
“I get called a fat t**t every time I walk past,” venue’s chief executive Steve Nichols told CNN Travel.
The parrots, which were adopted by Lincolnshire Wildlife Park in August, have taken a liking to throwing obscenities at just about anyone they encounter, including visitors.
“It just went ballistic, they were all swearing. We were a little concerned about the children.”
The five birds, named Eric, Jade, Elsie, Tyson, and Billy, were recently adopted from five different owners and shared a space before they were allowed to interact with others.
While their time together might have proved to be fun for the parrots, it was not so fun when staff discovered the issue it created.
“The more they swear the more you usually laugh which then triggers them to swear again,” Nichols told Lincolnshire Live.
“But when you get four or five together that have learnt the swearing and naturally learnt the laughing so when one swears, one laughs and before you know it just got to be like an old working men’s’ club scenario where they are all just swearing and laughing.”
Staff had hoped that putting them outside on display would help them kick their bad habit, but it did no such thing.
Since the parrots curse up a storm to “trigger reaction or a response” whenever a guest reacted, they would continue to swear.
While many have begged the wildlife park to bring the parrots back, staff made the decision to remove them in hopes that they would learn their manners.
“I’m hoping they learn different words within colonies – but if they teach the others bad language and I end up with 250 swearing birds, I don’t know what we’ll do,” Nichols told the BBC.
Swearing parrots aren’t unusual, it’s something that the wildlife park encounters every so often. But it is unusual to have a room full of birds dropping expletives left and right.
Although no visitors complained about the foul language, staff expressed concern about children and wanted to remain on the safe side so they removed them from their public display.
No word on when these swearing parrots will return to their public display.
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