British zoo separates 5 African parrots to stop them from using swear language at guests

At the British zoo Lincolnshire Wildlife Centre, keeping some of the bird residents' vocabulary limited to G-rated language has proven challenging — and park employees had to go as far as separating five African grey parrots to squash the swearing.

According to the Associated Press, Billy, Eric, Tyson, Jade, and Elsie were removed from each other's presences since they were encouraging each other to curse and rally in expletive-filled rants together.

Though most visitors who overheard the colorful language laughed it off — "When a parrot tells you to 'f--- off' it amuses people very highly; it’s brought a big smile to a really hard year," said Nichols — the zoo decided to take measures to nip the behavior in the bud.

The five parrots were spread out to different areas in the zoo so that they don't,  "set each other off."

Nichols told BBC News that the foul-mouthed birds would "swear to trigger a reaction or a response," so when park visitors burst into laughter or other birds reacted at their interjections, they'd hurl more bad words.

With the five, one would swear and another would laugh and that would carry on, he said.

... Some visitors found it funny but with kids visiting at weekends, we decided to move them.