The Ornithological Society is renaming dozens of birds — and stopping giving them human names

North American birds will not be named after the American Ornithological Society Announced Wednesday.

Subsequent yr, the group will start renaming about 80 species present in the US and Canada.

“There’s energy in a reputation, and a few English chook names have associations with the previous that stay exclusionary and dangerous immediately,” the group’s president, Colleen Handel, stated in a press release. “Everybody who loves and cares about birds ought to have the ability to take pleasure in and examine them freely.”

The group introduced that as an alternative of reviewing every chook bearing an individual’s title individually, all of those birds shall be renamed.

The birds to be renamed embody these presently known as Wilson’s warblers and Wilson’s snipe, each named after Nineteenth-century naturalist Alexander Wilson. Audubon’s shearling, a seabird named after John James Audubon, will even get a brand new title.

In 2020, the group renamed the chook that after referenced Accomplice Military Common John P. McCown because the Thick-billed Longspur.

“I am actually completely satisfied and enthusiastic about this announcement,” stated Emily Williams, an ornithologist at Georgetown College who was not concerned within the choice.

Heated debates over chook names have been occurring inside chook watching communities for the previous a number of years, she stated.

“Naming birds based mostly on habitat or look is among the least problematic approaches,” she stated.

Earlier this yr, the Nationwide Audubon Society Announce It might maintain its title, though critics and a few voices inside the group argued that it ought to do away with its affiliation with a person, John James Audubon, whose household owned slaves.

“The title has come to characterize a lot extra than simply the work of 1 individual,” stated Susan Bell, president of the board of administrators of the Nationwide Audubon Society. Audubon Magazine In March, he added: “We should bear in mind the racist legacy of John James Audubon.”

The 2020 encounter in New York’s Central Park was a public wake-up name in regards to the discrimination Black folks typically face when making an attempt to benefit from the outside.

Christian Cooper, a black birdwatcher, was looking for birds when he requested a white lady, Amy Cooper, to observe native guidelines and leash her canine. Cooper known as 911 and was later charged with submitting a false police report, though the fees had been later dropped.

Quickly after, a gaggle of chook watchers organized the primary occasion Blackbirders Week To extend the visibility of black nature lovers and scientists.

They known as a gaggle Bird names for birds He despatched a petition to the Ornithological Society urging it to “define a plan to vary the dangerous frequent names” for the birds.

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