'Foul mouthed' parrots separated at British zoo

London, September 30

A British zoo has had to separate five foul-mouthed parrots who keepers say were encouraging each other to swear.

  Billy, Eric, Tyson, Jade and Elsie joined Lincolnshire Wildlife Centre’s colony of 200 gray parrots in August, and soon revealed a penchant for blue language.

“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.” Nichols said no visitors had complained about the parrots, and most found the situation funny.

“When a parrot tells 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.

According to an Independent report quoting the park’s chief executive, the bawdy birds became residents at Lincolnshire Wildlife Park on August 15, and taught each other obscenities while quarantined together in the same room.

The park put the birds out on display when it reopened after the coronavirus lockdown, but it didn’t take long for the birds to start lobbing obscenities at returning visitors. “Literally within 20 minutes of being in the introductory we were told that they had sworn at a customer and for the next group of people, all sorts of obscenities came out,” Nichols said.  AP