Lincolnshire Wildlife Park is facing a dilemma over three African grey parrots with a penchant for swearing at visitors.
Five foul-mouthed birds that were given a three-month time-out back in 2020 were put back on display with positive results. However, the British zoo’s chief executive, Steve Nichols, is reluctant to deal with the current trio the same way, telling BBC, “Parrots are flock creatures. 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.”
The problem, says Nichols, is that the zoo “could end up with 100 swearing parrots on our hands.” But hopefully they’ll also copy more appropriate vocabulary and noises from the remainder of the flock.
And despite not being family friendly, Nichols admits the potty-mouthed parrots offer humor “when the world seems very serious.”
“You never tire of being told to eff off by a parrot. You can’t help but laugh. Of course, visitors stand around the enclosure swearing, trying to get the parrots to copy them,” he tells the outlet.