Multiple Bird Species being renamed to be More Politically Inclusive

[EpicRaptorMan]

https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/west/texas-birds-renamed-colonialism/amp/

I saw a pretty interesting Wilson's Snipe on AliExpress that I was thinking about obtaining and ofc it's the bird on the cover ad.

[stargatedalek]

The article doesn't include anything about suggested replacement common names, nor does it explain the harmful parts of the names origins. Are you certain any of this is real and not just a content mill article?

I'm all for updating common names to remove unfortunate connotations, intentional or not, but they don't explain what those connotations were here just an anecdote of who the bird was presumably named after.

[bmathison1972]

The American Ornithological Society is renaming a lot of birds. If I understand correctly, talking to other birders, they are changing the name of any bird named after a person, politically incorrect or otherwise, in favor of naming it based on morphologic features or possibly geographic areas.

[Arctinus]

Yes, I've first come across this news on Reddit. Not sure which article it was, specifically, but I found this one here. It still doesn't provide any suggestions for new names, though.

It does, however, also state, that American Ornithological Society has the power to rename Latin American birds as well, not just North American ones.

I'm not sure how reliable Newsweek is, but there seems to have been some backlash.

I do wonder if other languages will follow or keep the current names. I know some birds are named after people in my language.

[AnimalToyForum]

How are new common names established? Is it just an informal agreement in the birding community? Don't common names "just happen", which is why there are so many alternatives in different cultures and languages.

[bmathison1972]

How are new common names established? Is it just an informal agreement in the birding community? Don't common names "just happen", which is why there are so many alternatives in different cultures and languages.

In North America, there are formal names established by a committee within the AOS.

[Shane]

The American Ornithological Society is renaming a lot of birds. If I understand correctly, talking to other birders, they are changing the name of any bird named after a person, politically incorrect or otherwise, in favor of naming it based on morphologic features or possibly geographic areas.

This is correct, but they are also changing certain other names, such as the "flesh-footed warbler" where the name is not inclusive of a whole (the "flesh" descriptor here refers to a white skin tone).

It's similar to changing the name of the jewfish to the goliath grouper.

Though it's interesting that they've decided to do an across-the-board renaming of any bird with a common name associated with a person, regardless of the person's negative associations (or lack thereof).

Not all of them have replacement names as of yet. The one I'm most interested in is the Cooper's Hawk, since that's a pretty common bird that I (and many people) come into contact with on a somewhat regular basis.

[bmathison1972]

Yeah, Cooper's are backyard birds here