- “Ey, ****head! Polly wants a m*********ing cracker!”
Animals can be pretty smart sometimes. That’s common knowledge to anyone who owns a dog, or even a cat.
But everyone’s favorite pets aren’t actually the brightest ones in the animal kingdom. They’re actually kind of dumb in some ways when compared to creatures like the elephant, pig, or even octopus.
There’s also another group of animals that can be surprisingly intelligent – birds. While most of them are famously feather-brained, there are some species out there who display almost human-like intelligence.
Case in point, a recent study found that corvids – that is ravens, crows, and others like them – possess the ability to analyze their own knowledge, something we’ve thought only humans are capable of. Maybe we’ll cover that in a future story.
One more bird that possesses human-like features is the parrot. Parrots – like corvids – are famous for their ability to mimic human speech. They might not actually know what they’re saying, but they can sound eerily human.
This ability has landed a group of parrots in the UK in some hot water with the wildlife park they live in. The problem is not so much that they’re imitating people, but what they’ve chosen to imitate.
Namely, five African gray parrots have started swearing like sailors to the point that the animal park has had to put them on a timeout.
Really, hurling crude insults at innocent people? Where could these f***ing birds have learned that kind of behavior?
Learning from Each Other
The birds may have actually been fueling each other in repeating foul phrases, the Lincolnshire Wildlife Park’s CEO Steve Nichols told Lincolnshire Live. The birds are newly adopted, as they joined the park’s flock of 1,500 parrots only on August 15.
The foul-mouthed avians were initially quarantined in the same room to stop them from spreading possible disease. So they’re like people in that sense, too.
Soon, though, the staff at the park started hearing the darndest things from the room.
“For the last 25 years, we have always taken in parrots that have sometimes had a bit of blue language and we have really got used to that,” Nichols said.
“But, just by coincidence, we took in five in the same week and because they were all quarantined together it meant that one room was just full of swearing birds.”
As if the swearing wasn’t enough, the parrots also find it very funny. That’s based on the fact that when one swears, another laughs.
They probably learned the laughter from people who had been listening to them blast obscenities at each other. The issue here is that one parrot’s laughter inadvertently makes the others swear more.
“The more they swear, the more you usually laugh, which then triggers them to swear again,” explained Nichols.
“But [now] you get four or five together that have learnt the swearing and naturally learnt the laughing. So when one swears, one laughs and before you know it, it just got to be like an old working men’s club scenario where they are all just swearing and laughing.”
The **** You Looking at, Buddy?
Despite their filthy mouths, the wildlife park decided to put the birds on display. That was why they bought them, after all.
Yeah, that didn’t turn out to be such a great idea.
“Literally within 20 minutes of being in the introductory, we were told that they had sworn at a customer and for the next group of people, all sorts of obscenities came out,” Nichols said.
“And for one of our young girls, they really gave her some abuse. We found it highly amusing and the customers were fine – they were no problem at all. But we worried because we had a weekend coming up and children coming.”
Children are kind of like parrots in the sense that they like repeating what they hear, so putting them together with the birds might’ve made for a fascinating situation. Nichols and his staff, however, decided to bring the birds back in rather than deal with the fallout.
“We put them in an off-shore enclosure with the intention that hopefully they will start learning the other parrot’s noise that are around.
“What we will do now is release them out but in separate areas, so at least if they do swear, it is not as bad as three or four of them all blasting it out at once,” mused Nichols.
Bigger Worries
The park has averted bird-based disaster for now, but maybe they could’ve some good chuckles from the swearing parrots. The coronavirus pandemic has left the family-run zoo with few laughs lately.
“It has been very hard. The charity is going to end up losing somewhere between $385,000 and $515,000 for this year,” Nichols said.
“It has been a real rough year, but we are the eternal optimists and we have no option. We have to keep moving forward.”
Maybe they could showcase the five foul parrots in a separate display. Come one, come all! Hear the disgusting things these parrots say, guaranteed to leave your ears red!
We’re just saying, it might bring in some extra cash.