12/7/2023 0 Comments Who said to be or not to be![]() To make matters worse, his dear old dad's ghost showed up and told him that his uncle killed him to steal his crown. His father just died and his mom ran off to marry his uncle Claudius the first chance she got. "I mean, Wilson was the father of modern ornithology in North America, but this bird has so many other evocative characteristics.Hamlet is pretty depressed. "And I thought, what a terrible name," she says. Nol says she recently was visiting some salt marshes this summer and saw a common bird there that's called Wilson's Snipe, which has a long bill and engages in dramatic displays such as flying in high circles, which produces a whistling sound as air flows over specialized feathers. Take Brewer's sparrow, says Kaufman."What would be a good descriptive name for that? We can't call it Sagebrush Sparrow, even though it is in the sagebrush," he says, "because there is a sagebrush sparrow already." Unlike "Wilson's warbler," for example, the names "Yellow Warbler" or "Golden Winged Warbler" offer up a useful description, he says. Renaming the birds, in contrast, offered an opportunity to highlight unique features of the birds themselves. "That just seemed like it would lead to endless arguments," he says, adding that he didn't think the birding community should become the morality police for people who lived two centuries ago. Trying to do this bird by bird would mean engaging in divisive debates about individual people and the merits of whether or not they should have the honor of having a bird named after them, he realized. "But the longer we discussed this, the more I came around to seeing their viewpoint." "I knew the young people who had started this Bird Names for Birds movement, and I tried to talk some sense into them," he recalls. Science Who gets to use NASA's James Webb Space Telescope? Astronomers work to fight bias They noted that a 2019 proposal to rename a small prairie bird that had previously been named for Confederate General John P. Less than a month later, a group called Bird Names for Birds wrote to the leadership of the society, pointing out the potential problems that come with eponymous honors and demanding change. On that same day, a white woman in Central Park called the police on black birder Christian Cooper, claiming he was threatening her. That really started to change in 2020, when police officers killed George Floyd in Minneapolis. "That was the first that I'd ever really recognized or heard of a name that was offensive," says Handel, who says at that point in time, concerns about injustice wasn't a traditionally accepted reason for changing bird names. One notable exception came in 2000, however, when the society renamed a bird that's now called the Long-tailed Duck because of concerns that its previous name was derogatory to Native Americans. ![]() This bird used to be named for Confederate General John McCown, but in 2020, it was renamed the Thick-billed Longspur. He says he initially opposed the idea of changing so many names, but has come around. "I've been seeing some of these birds and using these names every year for the last 60 years," says Kenn Kaufman, a prominent author of field guides. ![]() The effort represents a huge change for the birding community, and those involved expect a certain amount of opposition from long-time birders. The society has promised to engage the public, and says that birds' scientific names won't be changed as part of this initiative. That's about 6 or 7 percent of the total species in this geographic region. The project will begin next year and initially focus on 70 to 80 bird species that occur primarily in the United States and Canada. "We've come to understand that there are certain names that have offensive or derogatory connotations that cause pain to people, and that it is important to change those, to remove those as barriers to their participation in the world of birds," she says. ![]() The move comes as part of a broader effort to diversify birding and make it more welcoming to people of all races and backgrounds.
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