Eric, Jade, Elsie, Tyson, and Billy are getting separated. The five African gray parrots were recently donated during the same week, by different owners, to the UK's Lincolnshire Wildlife Park, but something strange happened after they were quarantined in the same room, then put on display together: They started cursing at park staff and visitors, per Lincolnshire Live. "It just went ballistic, they were all swearing," Steve Nichols, the head of the park, tells CNN. "I get called a fat t--t every time I walk past." The park is also home to Chico, a parrot who gained world fame after a video of it singing Beyonce's "If I Were a Boy" went viral, and Nichols says those who used to come to see Chico are now enthralled with the cursing parrots, yelling obscenities into the bird enclosures to try to elicit a response.
"It's turned into an adult theme park at the moment but ... for language," he tells Lincolnshire Live. Plus, parrots get off on the reaction of observers, so if humans watching them start to laugh, make a face, or hurl their own expletives, the birds simply ramp up their cussing, Nichols says, adding that the birds' most common swear term is "f--- off." Despite the amusement the parrots have provided to adult spectators, it was decided to take the birds out of the main display area so that kids wouldn't be exposed to the blue squawking. They've also been split up, with park staff crossing their fingers that the parrots will pick up more appropriate language from their new non-swearing bird mates. "I'm hoping they learn different words within colonies, but if they teach the others bad language and I end up with 250 swearing birds, I don't know what we'll do," Nichols tells the BBC. (More parrots stories.)
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