A zoo in the British county of Lincolnshire has had to remove five recently acquired parrots from view because the animals had scolded several visitors. Presumably, the birds taught each other the insulting words during the park’s closure, he wrote BBC News Tuesday evening.
Lincolnshire Wildlife Park had only acquired the African Gray Parrots a month earlier.
When the staff discovered that the animals have a fairly extensive repertoire of swear words, many laughed. This probably motivated the parrots to adopt other people’s words and use them more often.
Park warden Steve Nichols tells British media that within 20 minutes of the park’s reopening, the parrots had targeted the first visitors and later smashed a young girl. It is not clear which words the birds used.
‘Unwise to keep birds in the same place’
According to Nichols, some visitors found the words used by the birds “very funny.” The zoo said it had to intervene, because a large group of children is expected in the park in the coming weekend.
“While we want to get everyone to laugh at these troubling times, we thought it would be unwise to keep the birds in the same place.”
‘Parrots are like a regular pub with old, raving men’
Nichols compares the five animals to old men in a local bar who constantly swear and laugh at each other. According to him, over the past 25 years, the park has taken over countless conspecifics who occasionally use the wrong words, but birds with such baloric behavior are unusual. The zoo has more than fifteen hundred parrots.
The five birds are separated and placed in cages where visitors cannot hear them. Nichols hopes other parrots will teach them neater language.
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