Five parrots separated at England zoo for encouraging each other to swear

A zoo in England has been forced to separate five parrots who wouldn’t stop swearing.

“These five parrots relish it…”

Yes, according to keepers, the birds encouraged each other to keep cursing and had to be moved from the main outdoor aviary. The birds’ named Billy, Eric, Tyson, Jade and Elsie were removed from view this week after they joined the Lincolnshire Wildlife Centre’s colony of 200 African grey parrots in August.

They were later put in quarantine together and quickly overwhelmed the staff with their naughty language.  

“We are quite used to parrots swearing, but we’ve never had five at the same time,” the center’s chief executive, Steve Nichols, told the Associated Press. “Most parrots clam up outside, but for some reason, these five relish it.” 

According to Nichols, none of the zoo’s visitors complained about the parrots, and most found them amusing. 

“When a parrot tells you to ‘f*** off’ it amuses people very highly,” he said. “It’s brought a big smile to a really hard year.” 

But, in order to ‘keep the peace’, they were separated and moved to various different areas of the wildlife center so they are unable to provoke each other, reports CBS.

Meet the now-famous swearing parrots

Now, the Lincolnshire Wildlife Centre took to Instagram to introduce the swearing parrots whose story has since gone viral.

Trigger reaction

Nichols later told BBC News that the parrots “swear to trigger reaction or a response,” so seeing people shocked or laughing only encourages the birds to curse more. 

“With the five, one would swear and another would laugh and that would carry on,” he said. “I’m hoping they learn different words within colonies,” Nichols added. “But if they teach the others bad language and I end up with 250 swearing birds, I don’t know what we’ll do.”