[cobirds] Re: Benefits of Keeping the Original Bird Names.

Whether the mischaracterization of John McCown in this message as a "brave hero who took the deadly risk to speaking against the Confederacy?" is deliberately provocative or just ignorant I can't begin to diagnose, but it is certainly "fact-free." McCown is indeed credited with calling the Confederacy a "damned stinking cotton oligarchy," but this was not some repudiation of the Confederacy and all it stood for. No, it was made in the heat of a political squabble he was involved in with Jefferson Davis and some of the other generals he had a disagreement with. The fact is that John McCown resigned his United States Army commission at the beginning of the war to take up arms against his country in defense of the Confederacy and the evils it stood for, and he remained a commissioned general in that force until the very end of the war.

In any case, this example alone I think neatly illustrates *precisely* why Bird Names for Birds originally formed, and why it has resulted in this decision by the AOS. If this is the quality of the supposed "history lessons" we can expect to receive from an eponym, all diversity and inclusion questions aside, we should have consigned these to the dustbin decades ago.

vr/

Max Miller

Lakewood, CO

On Saturday, November 4, 2023 at 4:06:13 PM UTC-6 Robert Righter wrote:

Hi

What a fascinating discussion we are all having on Cobirds about the implication of changing the names of birds.

Birds named after historical individuals offer important links to the rich history,  good and bad, about  how our country was formed but also how the history of birds evolved from hunting to the trill of bird watching, to the impressive  transformation from birding into an important scientific organization,  American Ornithological Union AOU.

Here are some brief examples of some:

Lewis's Woodpecker, named after Meriwether Lewis, the co-leader of the stupendously successful Lewis and Clark Expedition in the early 1800s which explored all the new land west to the Pacific Ocean. 

John Cassin (Cassin's Finch, Cassin's Kingbird and many more) from the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Science was one of the foremost ornithologist of the ninetieth century describing numerous new bird species. He fought form the Union Army during the Civil War, captured by the Confederate Army, and spent the rest of the war in the sadistic Libby Prison, not many survived, he was lucky, but died shortly afterwards 

John McCowen, (McCown's Longspur),  now the Thick-billed Longspur. was a Major General in the Confederate Army, He was a brilliant tactician with just a few hundred men and one piece of artillery, he defeated an entire division of Union cavalry. McCown became disillusioned with the purpose  of Confederacy and argued against it's goals and is is quoted as  saying about the Confederacy, "…a damned stinking cotton oligarchy.

Was McCown a villain or a brave hero who took the deadly risk to speaking against the Confederacy?

Steller's Jay named after Georg Steller a brilliant German scientist who was asked by Peter the Great to explore Russia, which he did during the winter by dog sled. Hooked up with Captain Bering and set sail to the east and where they discovered Alaska, then spent years ship wrecked on  Bering Island in the middle of the Aleutian Islands. He survived most others didn't.

 

This is just a taste of the intriguing history that underlies each of the bird species named after historic naturalist and ornithologist. More involved biographies of each  can be found in the Colorado Field Ornithologist Journals or just tap into Google & Wikipedia

Do you think this level of information enhance bird watching or not.

Bob Righter

Denver CO

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