African gray parrots.Photo:Getty
Getty
A group of parrots at a British zoo got so swear-happy that officials had to hatch a plan.
In 2020, five African gray parrots at Lincolnshire Wildlife Centremade headlines for their potty mouths. Though some visitors found it amusing, staff decided to separate the birds from the flock to spare children from their R-rated rants.
Now, over three years later, three different parrots are keeping the original squad’s foul-mouthed antics alive — prompting officials to change their approach, Nichols toldCNN.
According to the chief executive, who has worked with parrots for 35 years, the newly donated birds, Eric, Captain and Sheila, have even more vulgar vocabularies than the original swearing parrots, Billy, Eric, Tyson, Jade, and Elsie, perBBC News.
“When we came to move them, the language that came out of their carrying boxes was phenomenal, really bad,” Nichols told CNN. “Not normal swear words, these were proper expletives.”
An African gray parrot.Getty
This time around, instead of isolating the African grays, the zoo has integrated all eight profanity-loving birds with the rest of the flock in hopes that they take after the other parrots, swapping expletives for “all the nice noises like microwaves and vehicles reversing,” Nichols said.
“We’ve put eight really, really offensive, swearing parrots with 92 non-swearing ones,” he told CNN, noting that if their plan goes haywire, “it’s going to turn into some adult aviary.”
If the plan backfires, however, the swear-happy birds will still be the star attraction of the zoo. They offered humor “when the world seems very serious,” Nichols told BBC News.
Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
And while “only time will tell” what happens, the birds will undoubtedly be happier with the rest of their feathery zoo friends, Nichols told BBC News.
“Parrots are flock creatures,” he told the outlet. “They need to be with other parrots. The bigger the flock, the happier they are.”
“Even though they swear, the welfare of the birds has to come first.”
source: people.com
