It's being framed as a "fairly radical" decision in a fairly traditional domain. The American Ornithological Society on Wednesday said it will rename all US and Canadian bird species that honor people in order to remove painful associations that can come with the eponymous practice. NPR places the move in a larger context, noting it syncs with an effort within birding to make the activity more appealing to people of all backgrounds. And so in 2024, birds like Anna's Hummingbird, Lewis's Woodpecker, and Bewick's Wren will find themselves redubbed (though they'll hang onto their scientific names), as a handful of others already have in one-off cases; in 2020, for instance, a bird named for Confederate General John McCown saw itself become the Thick-billed Longspur.
The American Ornithological Society has overseen the list of English-language names for birds in the region since 1886. The group will initially focus on 70 to 80 species, which NPR reports is roughly 1 in 15 species across the US and Canada. The New York Times reports more than 100 species will ultimately get new names. And yes, that includes Audubon's shearwater and Audubon's oriole, species named for one of America's most renowned birders, John James Audubon, who was also a slave owner and fierce opponent of abolitionism, reports the Washington Post.
The decision was the result of a two-year process kicked off by Bird Names For Birds, which in 2020 wrote a petition requesting problematic names be changed. Ten experts then met to mull over the decision, which one field guides author who was resistant at first says he has come to agree with. Kenn Kaufman tells NPR the problem with a bird-by-bird approach is that each name would have to be debated individually, which "just seemed like it would lead to endless arguments." The renaming will also provide an opportunity to highlight the birds' distinctive characteristics or habitats—making the names more useful for those learning to identify birds. (More birds stories.)
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