Reckoning with the Racist Past of Bird Names
Amid protests over racism and inequality over the last months, Confederate statues and similar markers across the U.S. have been removed — some quietly, in the middle of the night, and some toppled by crowds. A similar reckoning is happening in the bird world when it comes to eponymous and honorific English common bird names — human names placed on birds, either to honor or memorialize someone.
“They’re essentially verbal statues for birds and the bird community, because these mostly white men were part of a really dark time in our history,” said Jordan Rutter, who is helping lead an initiative with co-founder Gabriel Foley and others in the birding community, called Bird Names for Birds. Rutter has a Master’s degree in ornithology, and has been birding as long as she can remember.
Amid protests over racism and inequality over the last months, Confederate statues and similar markers across the U.S. have been removed — some quietly, in the middle of the night, and some toppled by crowds. A similar reckoning is happening in the bird world when it comes to eponymous and honorific English common bird names — human names placed on birds, either to honor or memorialize someone.
“They’re essentially verbal statues for birds and the bird community, because these mostly white men were part of a really dark time in our history,” said Jordan Rutter, who is helping lead an initiative with co-founder Gabriel Foley and others in the birding community, called Bird Names for Birds. Rutter has a Master’s degree in ornithology, and has been birding as long as she can remember.
About 150 birds in North America are named for people, including Bachman’s sparrow. According to The CornellLab’s All About Birds page about the species, John James Audubon named the bird for Reverend John Bachman in 1834.
According to Rutter, Bachman was a Lutheran pastor who promoted white supremacy. “Some folks have said that he was just part of the times — that was the era he was living in,” Rutter said. “I don’t think that is a reason to continue honoring him today.”
Other birds have been named for slaveholders, and men who robbed the gravesites of Indigenous people.
The Bird Names for Birds initiative is petitioning the American Ornithological Society (AOS) “to acknowledge the issue of eponymous and honorific common names, to outline a plan to change harmful common names, and to prioritize the implementation of this plan.”
Amid protests over racism and inequality over the last months, Confederate statues and similar markers across the U.S. have been removed — some quietly, in the middle of the night, and some toppled by crowds. A similar reckoning is happening in the bird world when it comes to eponymous and honorific English common bird names — human names placed on birds, either to honor or memorialize someone.
“They’re essentially verbal statues for birds and the bird community, because these mostly white men were part of a really dark time in our history,” said Jordan Rutter, who is helping lead an initiative with co-founder Gabriel Foley and others in the birding community, called Bird Names for Birds. Rutter has a Master’s degree in ornithology, and has been birding as long as she can remember.
About 150 birds in North America are named for people, including Bachman’s sparrow. According to The CornellLab’s All About Birds page about the species, John James Audubon named the bird for Reverend John Bachman in 1834.
According to Rutter, Bachman was a Lutheran pastor who promoted white supremacy. “Some folks have said that he was just part of the times — that was the era he was living in,” Rutter said. “I don’t think that is a reason to continue honoring him today.”
Other birds have been named for slaveholders, and men who robbed the gravesites of Indigenous people.
See the full list of birds named for people
The Bird Names for Birds initiative is petitioning the American Ornithological Society (AOS) “to acknowledge the issue of eponymous and honorific common names, to outline a plan to change harmful common names, and to prioritize the implementation of this plan.”
“Some folks have said that he was just part of the times…I don’t think that is a reason to continue honoring him today.”
“It is our opinion that the mostly white group of people, both on the committee and in the bird community, can not make a decision of what is considered too racist or racist enough for a name to be removed,” Rutter said. “It needs to be all of them.”
https://www.alleghenyfront.org/recko...of-bird-names/
https://www.birdwatchingdaily.com/ne...-rename-birds/
