As one of the most intelligent birds in the world, African Grey parrots share the same cognitive level with a six-year-old human child. The African Grey parrots of Lincolnshire Wildlife Centre, Billy, Eric, Tyson, Jade and Elsie were separated after their naughty behaviour.
It was in August of 2020 the birds were adopted by the wildlife center. After a quarantine period, the birds released into an area where 200 African Grey parrots were living in.
Five African Grey Parrots were removed from their display at the Lincolnshire Wildlife Park in England because they were swearing at visitors in various English accents and then laughing with each other.
Pictured: the five culprits – Eric, Jade, Tyson, Elsie and Billy. pic.twitter.com/YnmqJwhP3n— Metta Bhavana "officialfineprintenvoy" #5xjabbed (@MettaBhavana1) October 16, 2022
“We are quite used to parrots swearing, but we’ve never had five at the same time,” Steve Nichols, chief executive of the center shared. “Most parrots clam up outside, but for some reason these five relish it.”
These birds were collected from five separate houses, and they come together in the joint space of the birds.
“99 percent of people when they have a parrot try to get it to say or do something unusual and swear words are by far the most common.”
“When you swear you say it in a certain context which is similar every time and it gives the parrots a way of tuning in and repeating it.”
“When they do repeat it, naturally people laugh because they find it really amusing, not realizing that they’re giving the parrot a license to do it as much as possible.”
“With the five, one would swear, and another would laugh and that would carry on,” Nichols continued.
“When a parrot tells you to ‘f*** off’ it amuses people very highly,” Nichols laughed then.
In 2022, February, the wildlife center reunited the birds. “We hoped that they would learn from what they heard repetitively over time. Some of these parrots are exceptional talkers so the plan was that they would pick up some of their good words.” Nichols added. “Sadly, it’s not really happened that way.”
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