When a particular committee of the American Ornithological Society first met to rethink the frequent names of birds named after individuals, eBird undertaking chief Marshall Iliff got here to a realization: regardless of long-standing observe, naming birds after individuals doesn’t work very nicely for birders, or birds.
“Naming nature after individuals taints it somewhat bit,” Iliff says. “On the subject of naming a chicken,” he says, it’s “higher to honor one thing concerning the chicken, relatively than an individual.”
Up to now few years, scientists have extensively debated what to do with the names of birds, bugs, fish, vegetation, and even mountains that embody dated phrases with an offensive historical past, equivalent to gypsy moth (renamed as spongy moth by the Entomological Society of America in 2021). For birds, the nice majority of names beneath dialogue are eponyms—species which were named after an individual.
Iliff and 10 different members of the AOS English Chook Names committee wrestled with the query of eponymous title modifications for 9 months, assembly each two weeks—an exhaustive effort that included conducting historic analysis, deliberating extensively differing views, and contemplating completely different processes for change. On the coronary heart of the difficulty, the committee needed to weigh two sides: is it higher to maintain long-accepted frequent names for the steadiness they supply; or would altering eponymous names free the birds from the private pasts of people, in addition to do a greater job of describing the birds?
In August the committee beneficial that AOS change the frequent names of each chicken species within the U.S. and Canada with an eponym (learn the committee’s full report). On November 1, the AOS introduced that it’ll comply with by way of on that advice—beginning a course of which will take years, first specializing in 70–80 species discovered primarily within the U.S. and Canada.
In its advice, the society defined its rationale: “The AOS Council totally embraces this chance to take away exclusionary boundaries to participation within the enjoyment of birds and, by way of the renaming course of, to teach the general public concerning the birds themselves, their current inhabitants declines, and their dire want for conservation.”
Gaining Steam
The concept of reconsidering long-held chicken names has been slowly gaining steam.
In 2019 birders campaigned to vary the frequent title of the McCown’s Longspur, a grassland chicken named for John McCown, a nineteenth century U.S. Military soldier. McCown made the primary scientific assortment of the species in 1851, however he went on to function a common within the Accomplice Military through the Civil Warfare. At first AOS rejected the proposal, citing the worth of sustaining stability in frequent names. However in 2020 the classification committee revised its pointers, including issues for altering English frequent chicken names that create “ongoing hurt.” A brand new model of the proposal was resubmitted and, this time, accepted. The chicken was renamed Thick-billed Longspur.
The longspur’s renaming kicked off a bigger dialogue inside the birding group. A yr later, the AOS hosted a digital discussion board known as the Group Congress on Chook Names to open up dialog amongst ornithologists, birders, and leaders of conservation teams. (Learn our protection of the discussion board.) The overall sentiment amongst individuals who spoke on the discussion board—together with birding luminaries equivalent to best-selling creator Kenn Kaufman, field-guide creator and artist David Allen Sibley, and American Birding Affiliation president Jeff Gordon—favored making a change in frequent chicken names.
“As I’ve realized extra about eponymous chicken names over the past yr, it’s turn into clear that these names carry lots of baggage,” mentioned Sibley on the Group Congress. “The toughest half will most likely be convincing the birding group that that is well worth the hassle… However I feel it’s essential and undoubtedly price doing.”
Altering Names: Some Vs. All
The AOS English Chook Names committee shaped the yr after the Group Congress, and it thought of a spread of choices for its advice, together with a case-by-case evaluation of solely the frequent names with probably the most hurtful ties to racism, oppression, and violence. However committee members—which included biologists, taxonomists, and birders from eight establishments within the U.S. and Canada—say they felt that might arrange an intractable course of of constructing categorical worth judgments about what individuals mentioned and the way they lived their lives, typically greater than 100 years in the past.
Then the committee raised their lens to the extra expansive downside: that eponyms are poor descriptors, extra more likely to convey possession of a chicken species by some particular person of the previous (e.g., the vexing possessive apostrophe in Kirtland’s Warbler) than transmit details about the chicken itself.
“Noticed Sandpiper is a very useful title,” says Iliff. “Pink-breasted Nuthatch, Pinyon Jay, these names describe one thing that’s actually the essence of the chicken.”
Ultimately, the committee concluded that if it was needed to vary sure eponyms, then the one possible option to proceed was to vary all eponyms.
As for go about altering all these eponyms, Irene Liu, who additionally served on the English Chook Names committee, says it will likely be essential to open up the official naming course of for birds. Liu is a science editor within the Cornell Lab’s Heart for Conservation Media, and he or she’s a scientist who studied the conservation genetics of blackbirds for her PhD. She says the renaming effort wants to succeed in nicely past individuals with PhDs and biology levels.
“Scientists [should be on the committee] for positive, as a result of we want their experience,” she says, including that the trouble additionally must “name on people who find themselves not usually concerned in chicken names.” The suggestions to the AOS Council known as for brand spanking new standing committee members who signify broad experiences and relationships with birds and their names, equivalent to nonscientist birders, birding guides, naturalists, artists, and poets—in addition to alternatives for public enter, so anyone can counsel and supply suggestions about doable new frequent names.
Liu says a aim is engagement of “a various public turning into invested in a renaming course of in a approach that may encourage pleasure and engagement in birds.”
A Spectrum of Opinions
The committee members additionally know that pleasure for an enormous overhaul of frequent names gained’t be common—inside the scientific group, the birding group, or the general public at giant.
Pam Rasmussen is the lead taxonomist for Birds of the World, the Cornell Lab’s on-line compendium of life histories for practically each chicken on Earth. She has been a member of the AOS North American Classification Committee for greater than 20 years, the place one in every of her duties has been serving to to resolve common-name modifications annually as splits and lumps shake up the taxonomic classification of birds.
Each title change creates somewhat instability and strife for scientists and birders, Rasmussen says. However with 150-plus modifications to frequent chicken names coming down the pipeline, there shall be many robust disagreements among the many biologists, birders, and birding-tour guides who depend on the steadiness of a typical language for chicken names.
“Lots of people are going to be pondering that it’s an overreaction,” she says. “There are going to be people who find themselves unhappy to see the names that they’ve grown up with, or the names that they’ve realized and used for a few years, be modified.”
Within the committee’s deliberations, Rasmussen says the group tried “to provide you with a course of that’s going to be finest for the long run—finest for ornithology, finest for ornithologists, and finest for the birds.
“Whether or not one agrees with all of the features of the choice or not, the perfect factor for ornithology, for ornithologists, and for birds is to be as constructive and non-divisive as doable.”
And, she notes, all people could have a lot of time to get used to the concept of renaming 70–80 species within the U.S. and Canada with extra descriptive frequent names: “We don’t anticipate something to vary for fairly a while, months and months not less than.”
The AOS publishes updates to chicken names simply annually in summer season. The society has introduced that the primary naming effort shall be a pilot targeted on a small variety of species.
A Broader Base of Assist for Birds
Liu says that the AOS additionally expects criticism concerning the final affect of the renaming birds effort. Skeptics have mentioned that altering a chicken’s title doesn’t actually accomplish something in addressing previous wrongs and exclusionary practices in ornithology.
“We don’t see the altering of names as adequate motion in itself … that’s not the tip,” Liu says. “As an alternative, it’s a way to an finish, which is to really bend the curve.” She’s referring to the development of pervasive inhabitants losses for birds throughout North America. A acknowledged aim of the Cornell Lab is galvanizing motion to show the steep declines of birds into a gradual rise.
There’s precedent for altering a chicken’s title with the purpose of aiding its conservation outlook. About 20 years in the past, biologists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service petitioned the American Ornithologists’ Union (now the AOS) to vary the title Oldsquaw to its present title, Lengthy-tailed Duck. The petition famous that conservation efforts for the species would require the assistance of tribal companions in Alaska—however the duck’s title was offensive to many Indigenous individuals. In 2000, the check-list committee accepted the proposal and formally modified the title to Lengthy-tailed Duck.
In the end, the broader eponym-renaming effort is geared towards what birds in decline want most, Liu says: extra individuals who care about them.
“[We need] a big-tent method to individuals getting concerned in birds and falling in love with them,” she says, “so individuals can care about what occurs to birds, and hopefully be part of their restoration.”
