Kicker: No fowl mouths here

NICK EICHER, HOST: “Bad company ruins good morals,” the Apostle Paul teaches. We know that’s true. Today, an example from the animal world.

Consider: Five people bequeathed parrots to a zoo in England, but the foul language the African Grays learned at home didn’t stay at home.

Steve Nichols is zookeeper. He told the BBC:

NICHOLS: The African Grays, it’s really good, because whoever teaches them, that’s the voice that they have.

So he tried rehabilitating the blue talkers by isolating them. That just made them worse.

Then they put the naughty birds with other birds that make the sounds of people laughing or that repeat nursery rhymes.

But the problem here is the birds’ exposure to the public who love the bad language and egg them on. Again, bad company.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

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