UK Wildlife Park Separates Five Swearing Parrots After They Taught Each Other to Curse

Five African grey parrots donated to Lincolnshire Wildlife Park in Lincolnshire, eastern England, were split up and distributed across separate areas of the park after they bonded during quarantine and began enthusiastically teaching one another to swear at visitors. The birds, named Billy, Elsie, Eric, Jade and Tyson, had joined the park's colony of 200 African greys in August 2020 and quickly made an impression on both staff and guests.

The trouble started during quarantine, when the five spent their days, as the park put it, "telling each other where to go." Once released into the main colony, keepers had hoped the older resident birds would dilute the new arrivals' language. The opposite happened. "Once their quarantine period was over, they went to live in one of our colonies," the park noted on its website. "It was hoped that some of the older residents would dilute their language. However, this had the opposite effect, and many more inhabitants were influenced to use this new language, which made visitors giggle."

Steve Nichols, CEO of Lincolnshire Wildlife Park, described the dynamic with some bemusement. "We saw it very quickly - we are quite used to parrots swearing but we've never had five at the same time," he told the Associated Press. "Most parrots clam up outside, but for some reason these five relish it." The reinforcing loop between the birds made containment urgent: "With the five, one would swear and another would laugh and that would carry on."

Nichols explained that the parrots weren't swearing randomly. "They swear to trigger reaction or a response," he said, noting that visible shock or laughter from visitors only encouraged more profanity. Despite that, no visitor complaints were logged. "When a parrot tells you to 'f*** off' it amuses people very highly," Nichols said. "It's brought a big smile to a really hard year."

The five were split between two colonies to prevent them from setting each other off, with the park citing its family-friendly environment as the primary reason for intervention. The separation was also intended to encourage the birds to pick up natural calls from the other African greys around them.

The strategy proved only partially effective. The park's own tally eventually climbed: "We now have a total of 8 full time swearers." In a later development, three newly donated cussing parrots named Eric, Captain and Sheila were integrated alongside the original five in a deliberate experiment. "We've put eight really, really offensive, swearing parrots with 92 non-swearing ones," Nichols told CNN. The hope was that the eight would absorb the flock's more benign sounds, described by Nichols as "all the nice noises like microwaves and vehicles reversing." The risk, he acknowledged, was that 92 previously well-mannered African greys might go the other way entirely: "It's going to turn into some adult aviary."

Nichols offered a straightforward explanation for why expletives stick so easily with African greys, a species whose intelligence researchers compare to that of apes, whales and dolphins. The birds are highly social in the wild, forming roost groups of up to 1,000, and are wired to mimic sounds heard consistently in the same tone and context. "When you tell someone to eff off, you usually say it the same every time," he said.

The park confirmed the famous five remain on-site and viewable by the public, which is welcome to visit seven days a week except Christmas and New Year. As for their vocabulary, the park's FAQ is candid: "They're still as foul-mouthed as ever; it's just a little more diluted these days.