The chief executive of Lincolnshire Wildlife Park had to temporarily remove five parrots from public view.
- This comes after they were caught swearing at the visitors of the park.
- The five African grey parrots had been adopted on August 15.
- Lincolnshire Wildlife Park CEO Steve Nichols: “It’s turned into an adult theme park at the moment but only for language […] It’s been a rough year but it has ended with a bit of a smile anyway.”
On August 15, the Friskney park adopted five African grey parrots which it has now removed from public view.
The Friskney park houses over 1,500 parrots and has recently removed five of their newly adopted ones from public view after they began swearing at the park’s visitors. The parrots were being quarantined in the same room and it is there where they had taught each other how to swear. Subsequently, when the park re-opened, the birds began swearing at the customers, and upon hearing the foul language, the staff at the park could not help but laugh. Unfortunately, according to the park’s CEO Steve Nichols, laughter and smiles only further encouraged the parrots.
Speaking to Lincolnshire Live, CEO Steve Nichols commented on the five foul-mouthed parrots:
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 […] 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.
The park admits that they recognize that visitors could use a laugh in these difficult times.
Nichols claimed that having the swearing parrots has provided some light relief for the visitors and staff: “It’s turned into an adult theme park at the moment but only for language […] It’s all been with absolute fun – it’s been brilliant. It’s been a rough year but it has ended with a bit of a smile anyway.” Despite the smiles which the birds can put on the face of adult visitors, they have had to be placed in an off-shore enclosure because of the children who visit the park. Nevertheless, they will soon be released into separate areas as Nichols notes that having one parrot is not as bad as having all five blasting out obscenities. In addition to this, he also commented on the pandemic and its effect on the park as he explained:
It has been very hard. The charity is going to end up losing somewhere between £300,000 and £400,000 for this year. […] It has been a real rough year, but we are the eternal optimists and we have no option. We have to keep moving forward. […] We are now planning for next Easter and hoping that everything is at least in some kind of normality by then.