The American Ornithological Society announced on Wednesday (November 1) that birds in North America will not be named after people going forward. The organisation has said that starting next year, the organisation will start the exercise of renaming around 80 species that are found in the US and Canada. In the year 2020, the organisation renamed a bird that was previously named after Confederate Army General John P McCown.
“There is power in a name, and some English bird names have associations with the past that continue to be exclusionary and harmful today,” the organisation’s president, Colleen Handel, said in a statement as quoted by the Associated Press.
Birds that will be renamed include those that are currently called Wilson’s warbler and Wilson’s snipe. Both of these birds were named after Alexander Wilson, a 19th-century naturalist.
“Everyone who loves and cares about birds should be able to enjoy and study them freely.”
“I’m really happy and excited about the announcement,” said Emily Williams, an ornithologist at Georgetown University who was not involved in the decision.
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As reported by The Associated Press, she said that the birdwatching community has seen heated discussions over bird names for the past several years.
“Naming birds based on habitat or appearance is one of the least problematic approaches,” she said.
The National Audubon Society declared that it would not change its name. There have been calls from critics and even from a few people within the organisation who called for a name change since John James Audubon, the man after whom the organisation is named, was part of a family that owned slaves.
“The name has come to represent so much more than the work of one person,” Susan Bell, chair of the National Audubon Society’s Board of Directors, told Audubon magazine in March, adding, “We must reckon with the racist legacy of John James Audubon.”
An incident in New York’s Central Park brought to the fore discrimination that African-American people often face when they are trying to enjoy the outdoors.
Christian Cooper, an African-American birdwatcher was observing birds when Amy Cooper, a white woman, asked him to follow local rules and leash her dog. Cooper called 911 and was later charged with filing a false police report, though the charges were later dropped.
(With inputs from agencies)
