On Nov. 1, 2023, the American Ornithological Society announced its plan to change the English names of bird species named after people in hopes of making ornithology more inclusive. In 2024 the AOS will rename 70-80 bird species in North America.
“It takes a little bit of history to understand what’s going on,” said Rachel Bolus, a Southern Utah University assistant professor in the biology department who specializes in ornithology.
Back in the 1800s, the AOS decided that one of their roles was to decide the common English names of bird species in the United States and Canada.
“Most species — plants, animals, other living things — they all have Latin names,” Bolus said. “Common names are usually just what people call it … but ornithologists decided in the 1800s that we were going to have official common names so we could talk in English and not just in Latin.”
Bolus mentioned a few different factors that tend to constitute a bird’s common name: what it eats, what it looks like and where it lives. In some cases, however, the birds are named in honor of a person.
“There has been historic bias in how birds are named and who might have a bird named in their honor,” Judith Scarl, AOS executive director and CEO, said in a press release. “Exclusionary naming conventions developed in the 1800s, clouded by racism and misogyny, don’t work for us today, and the time has come for us to transform this process and redirect the focus to the birds, where it belongs.”
One species that has been affected by this plan is the Rhyncophanes mccownii, a bird found in North American grasslands. The bird was once commonly referred to as McCown’s Longspur after John P. McCown, but due to his ties to the Confederate Army, the species has been renamed to the Thick-billed Longspur.
By getting rid of exclusionary or offensive names, the American Ornithological Society hopes more people will become engaged in the study of birds, which, in turn, will hopefully increase the protection of birds in North America.
“Everyone who loves and cares about birds should be able to enjoy and study them freely — and birds need our help now more than ever,” said AOS President Colleen Handel in the same press release.
“I imagine most of the people having these conversations are already birders,” said Bolus, “but it does make us talk to each other. It does make us recognize some of the names that we’ve forgotten.”
Alexander Wilson, an early ornithologist, has been brought up in this discourse. Known as the father of ornithology, Wilson has up to five species named after him. Some birders online protest the renaming of birds named in his honor because he was so important to the development of ornithology.
For the most part though, Bolus hasn’t noticed many professionals in the field disagree with the project. Bolus herself said that she is not upset about any names changing because, in reality, names are changing all of the time.
“I find it’s going to be a unique challenge,” she said. “The next time — or maybe the time after that — when I teach, I’ll have to relearn 70-80 new names.”
She does believe that names based on appearance, location or diet will be easier for new students to learn because those factors are more identifiable than people’s surnames.
As the project kicks off, the AOS seeks out consultation from the public. More information about the American Ornithological Society and how to get involved in the name-changing process can be found on their website.
Author: Heather Turner
Photographer: Andrew Copeland
Editor: Lily Brunson
outdoors@suunews.net
