More than 100 species of birds will have their names changed -- no longer to be named for humans

The new bird names will help birders identify species.
(Photo by Eric Wengert, Alamy)

In the late 1600s, Shakespeare's starry-eyed Juliet pondered, "What's in a name?" It's a shame that a more reasonable person (instead of Romeo) didn't respond with, "A whole heck of a lot."

Unless one is dazed or tased by love, names matter, even for birds. "The American Ornithological Society has committed to replacing all bird names derived from people to redress the recognition of historical figures with racist or colonial pasts," reports Katrina Miller of The New York Times. These names, the society said in a statement, "can be harmful, exclusive and detract from 'the focus, appreciation or consideration of the birds themselves.'"

In all, the change will rename "more than 100 avian species across the Americas," including "birds such as Audubon's shearwater, a bird found off the coast of the southeastern United States, will no longer have a name acknowledging John James Audubon, a famous bird illustrator and a slave owner who adamantly opposed abolition . . . . The Scott's oriole, a black-and-yellow bird inhabiting the Southwest and Mexico, will also receive a new moniker, which will sever ties to the U.S. Civil War general Winfield Scott, who oversaw the forced relocation of Indigenous peoples in 1838 that eventually became the Trail of Tears."

"'We're really doing this to address some historic wrongs,'" said Judith Scarl, the executive director of the American Ornithological Society. Scarl added that the change would help "engage even more people in enjoying and protecting and studying birds." Miller reports. "Advocates of this change believe that many English common names for birds are 'isolating and demeaning reminders of oppression, slavery and genocide,' according to a petition in 2020 that was addressed to the American Ornithological Society. The petition was written by Bird Names For Birds, an initiative founded by two ornithologists."

Some birders were uncertain about the changes. Jeff Marks, an ornithologist at the Montana Bird Advocacy, told Miller, "I'm not super enthusiastic about it, but neither am I super disappointed about it. . . . We'll lose a little bit of knowledge about some key people in the history of ornithology, and that saddens me. But maybe in the scheme of things, that's just not that big of a deal."

Jordan Rutter, one of the founders of Bird Names For Birds, "said the petition was inspired by what became a momentous encounter in Central Park in 2020, when a white woman falsely reported to police that Christian Cooper, a Black birder, was threatening her," Miller reports. "The Central Park encounter. . . spurred an avalanche of similar initiatives in the sciences against the backdrop of a nationwide racial reckoning." Cooper's fame has led him to host a National Geographic birding show. He told Miller: "There's no reason to have a person's name attached to a bird, because it doesn't tell you anything about the bird."