Cursing Parrots Spice Up British Zoo

A family-friendly zoo in England has an R-rated problem: five African grey parrots that curse a blue streak. The foul-mouthed birds are spicing up the proceedings at Lincolnshire Wildlife Park in Friskney.

The raunchy flock, donated by various people around the UK, arrived at the zoo in 2020 and spent three months in quarantine before going on display. The park officials were both alarmed and amused at the new crew’s salty language.

“All five had their own repertoire of ‘blue language,’” the park issued in a statement. “Within a very short time, it sounded like an old man’s working club in that room, as they all let out variations of foul language,” and then they would laugh.

“The language that came out of their carrying boxes was phenomenal, really bad,” park chief exec Steve Nichols tells CNN. “Not normal swear words, these were proper expletives.”

The zoo separated the birds, but that only made matters worse: the cursing spread to three more parrots. “We have integrated them with a group of greys that are also renowned for their vocabulary, but of nicer words, in the hopes that they will pick those sounds and words up … and drop the foul language!” the statement continued. (The foul language did not drop.)

Now the zoo is taking a gamble by integrating the cheeky birds into the broader population, in hopes that will dilute the profanity. “We’ve put eight really, really offensive, swearing parrots with 92 non-swearing ones,” Nichols says. The potty talk probably won’t disappear entirely, but as the birds learn new words and sounds, it is hoped the profanities will become less frequent. 

Nichols is aware of the risk of this strategy. “We could end up with 100 swearing parrots on our hands,” he admits. “Only time will tell.”

Photo credit: Lincolnshire Wildlife Park via Instagram