[cobirds] on renaming (an encore)

I'm grateful that our moderator has let this discussion go on, as I have finally got a minute to contribute my (borrowed) 2 cents.

Here is an interesting quote that fellow birder Sandra Laursen sent out this summer, which bears a second look. Most of us are big admirers of Ed Yong. Note that this followed the earlier national announcement about the long-overdue disgracing of the artist and also racist and prolific birdkiller JJ Audubon. For a while there, my spouse had to pretend not to be French!

The Fight Over Animal Names Has Reached a New Extreme
by Ed Yong, The Atlantic Monthly, 5/25/23

This snippet [Sandra notes] addresses why this issue is particularly relevant to birders and Westerners, as Nature-netters [the wonderful BCNA listserv] are one or both:

The common names of almost 150 North American birds are eponyms—that is, they derive from people. A disproportionate number of these names were assigned in the early 19th century by the soldier-scientists who traveled westward across the U.S. Bestowing eponyms to honor commanders, benefactors, family members, and one another, they turned the continent's avifauna into tributes to "conquest and colonization," as Hampton wrote. Many birders are now pushing to remove these eponyms, arguing that too many of them tie nature's beauty and the pure joy of seeing a new species to humanity's worst grotesqueries. "I didn't ask for any of this information; I was just trying to bird," Tykee James, the president of D.C. Audubon Society, told me. But now "we should do better because we know better—that's the scientific process."

The piece goes on to articulate additional, interesting arguments for ditching human names altogether from the common and Latin names for wildlife.

 

And most of these arguments apply equally well to the names of buildings, forts, programs, and organizations.  An argument Yong doesn't touch on, but that comes to my mind:  It seems so much simpler to respect the feelings of people alive today by applying a simple rule - no eponyms at all  - than it is to adjudicate an individual's history to decide if their name is relevant or worthy, an asset or a drain on whatever is being named.

Thanks again, Sandra!

Linda Andes-Georges

central Boulder County/shortgrass prairie

I acknowledge that I live in the territory of Hinóno'éí (Arapaho) and Cheyenne Nations, according to the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie; and that Colorado's Front Range is home to The Ute & many other Native peoples. Reconozco que vivo en el territorio de las naciones Hinóno'éí (Arapaho) y Cheyenne, según el 1851 Tratado de Fort Laramie; y que el estado de Colorado al esté de las Montañas Rocosas es territorio de Utes y muchos otros pueblos indígenas.