Dozens of bird species being renamed to avoid use of racist names

Starting in 2024, the American Ornithological Society will be looking into changing the names of up to 80 bird species in the United States and Canada “in an effort to address past wrongs.”

“There is power in a name, and some English bird names have associations with the past that continue to be exclusionary and harmful today,” Colleen Handel, the organization’s president, said Wednesday in a release.

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She continued, “We need a much more inclusive and engaging scientific process that focuses attention on the unique features and beauty of the birds themselves.”

AOS is joining the movement of changing school names, street titles, and sports mascots to change English bird names that represent people’s names with a history that either owned slaves, took land from Indigenous tribes, or had a colonialist past.

“Ornithologists have long grappled with historical and contemporary practices that contribute to the exclusion of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, including how birds are named,” the organization said in their release.

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AOS plans to change any “offensive and exclusionary” species names.

The society will create a new committee to oversee the assignment of names and will have “diverse representation.”

The organization’s CEO is “excited” by the “new vision” to create an “inclusive naming structure.”

“As scientists, we work to eliminate bias in science. But there has been historic bias in how birds are named, and who might have a bird named in their honor. Exclusionary naming conventions developed in the 1800s, clouded by racism and misogyny, don’t work for us today, and the time has come for us to transform this process and redirect the focus to the birds, where it belongs,” AOS CEO Judith Scarl said.

The Bird Names for Birds organization, which has spent the past three years collecting extensive biographies on bird names and their history, cheered Wednesday’s announcement from AOS.

Birds with scientific names, such as Haliaeetus leucocephalus, the scientific name for the bald eagle, will not be changed.

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“The time has come for us to transform this process and redirect the focus to the birds, where it belongs,” the AOS president said.

The organization is encouraging public input at their website at www.americanornithology.org and @AmOrnith as they determine the name changes.