[Written by Chuck Almdale]

The American Ornithological Society (AOS) is soliciting opinions on the controversy of changing eponymous bird names (named for someone, e.g. Anna’s Hummingbird). If you need no more information than that, then they announced in their 13 May online posting AOS Pilot Project to Change Harmful English Common Bird Names:

Please submit your ideas and comments to us [AOS) through this online form by Friday, 31 May 2024.

I encourage you to submit your ideas and comments ASAP, as time is running out. If you need more information than that, read on. There will be a followup posting with an even more extensive history on this controversy posted here in a day or two.

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The American Ornithological Society (AOS) has been embroiled in a divisive discussion for over six years having to do with eponymous names for birds (i.e. birds named for people, almost exclusive white people of European ancestry). It is difficult to read any AOS postings on this subject without seeing this quote:

“There is power in a name, and some English bird names have associations with the past that continue to be exclusionary and harmful today.” – AOS President Colleen Handel, Ph. D.

If – a big if – there actually is any power in a bird’s name, can it be maleficent? Can a bird’s name be truly “exclusionary” or “harmful”? Whom does “Lucy’s Warbler” or “Inca Dove” exclude? Whom does it harm? Did McCown’s name on a longspur bother more than one person in the entire United States before people began crying, “We should feel harmed and excluded by this name.” And lastly, there are the opportunity costs: what worthwhile projects are ignored while they argue about eponyms.

It is interesting to note the frequent display of the quotation above on the AOS website, and that it has been picked up by other organizations eager to “decolonize” bird names. If you don’t know of or doubt the purported relationship of “decolonization” to eponymous bird names, it was given as the reason for making these changes, as demanded in the opinion piece by “Bird Names For Birds” (BN4B) published on the Washington Post website on 4 Aug 2020: The stench of colonialism mars these bird names. They must be changed. Yes, that’s the article’s real name. This piece was published six weeks after BN4B sent their petition to the AOS requesting the change of eponymous English bird names.

Despite the high level of education and expertise within their membership, the AOS leadership Council has rarely solicited and sometimes deliberately ignored their opinions^1,2,3,4,5,6 on this matter of eponyms. However, they are now asking the general bird-interested public as well as their members what they think. If you have an opinion on the wisdom and inclusiveness or stupidity and pointless virtue-signaling of eliminating eponymous bird names, now’s the time to let them have it. Buried near the end of one of their website articles, dated 13 May 2024, with the unpromising title AOS Pilot Project to Change Harmful English Common Bird Names, there was the following request:

Please submit your ideas and comments to us [AOS) through this online form by Friday, 31 May 2024.
I encourage you to submit your ideas and comments. They will ask you:

• Are you a present or past AOS member? (You don’t need to be a member.)
• Do you want to be involved in developing the English Common Names Pilot Project?
• Your expertise/experience? Describe it.
• Optional: Please share comments, suggestions, feedback, and ideas about the English Common Names Pilot Project.
• Optional: Please share comments about past AOS decisions and actions about English bird names.
• Optional: Please share content and format suggestions for the AOS Public Forum on English Common Names at the 2024 annual meeting in Estes Park, Colorado, in October.
• Optional: Please share general comments, suggestions, feedback, and ideas.

At the start you are given the opportunity of saving your work through Google Forms; at the end you may request a copy of all questions & your answers sent to you. Depending on the length, complexity and number of your answers, you can easily spend more than a couple of minutes on this. I recommend you utilize Google Forms and request the copy.

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Some useful acronyms:
AOU – American Ornithological Union; merged with Cooper Ornithological Society in 2016 to become the AOS.
AOS – American Ornithological Society; successor to AOU; research, nomenclature, taxonomy, meetings; you can join for $90/year or less.
BN4B – Bird Names for Birds; a group favoring Decolonialism and elimination of eponymous bird names.
IOU – International Ornithologist’s Union; promoting ornithology and updating a world checklist.
LSU – Louisiana State University; heavily involved in Central/South American ornithology for many decades
NACC – North America Classification Committee; taxonomy & nomenclature
SACC – South America Classification Committee; taxonomy & nomenclature
WGAC – Working Groups Avian Checklists; groups affiliated with IOU

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Notes on AOS lack of soliciting opinions and ignoring opinions proffered: Protests from AOS fellows, members, and outsiders.

1. 1 Nov 2023: South American Classification Committee (SACC), website based at Louisiana State University (LSU): SACC disaffiliates with AOS:
“SACC became affiliated with the American Ornithological Society in August 2002, but is no longer affiliated with the AOS, as of 1 November 2023, when the AOS leadership decided that all eponymous names were to be purged and that the South American Classification Committee would no longer be in charge of English names.  SACC is now affiliated with the International Ornithologists’ Union as a regional committee working with the IOU’s Working Group Avian Checklists (WGAC), whose goal is to produce a global classification of birds.“

2. 13 May 2024: AOS website confirms that SACC disaffiliated with AOS and affiliated with International Ornithological Union (#1 above): AOS Pilot Project to Change Harmful English Common Bird Names:
“Our decision to change all eponymous English names of birds within our geographic purview triggered a marked response from the AOS’s South American Classification Committee (SACC), which has maintained the globally recognized checklist of South American birds since 1998. The SACC had been formally affiliated with the AOS since 2002, but after the AOS announced its decision to change all eponymous names, almost all members of the SACC joined the International Ornithologists’ Union (IOU) as a regional committee within the IOU’s Working Group on Avian Checklists, whose goal is to produce and maintain a global checklist of birds. This change in affiliation has resulted in an additional complexity relative to our decision, namely, the need to discuss and decide with other checklist committees and ornithological societies what is truly within the AOS’s geographic purview for naming (and renaming) birds.“

3. 28 Nov 2023: R.K. Hopper petition thru Change.Org: Petition to AOS Leadership on the Recent Decision to Change all Eponymous Bird Names. Over 6,300 signatures received; included comments from many very-well-known birding community members.
“We the undersigned strongly support diversity and inclusion in the birding community but disagree with this decision for the following reasons: The destabilization of 150 English bird names is unprecedented….The attempt by AOS leadership to appear more diverse and inclusive has created an unprecedented and unnecessary division within the birding community unseen in our lifetimes….We challenge the AOS to produce evidence that bird names are having a negative impact on the stated goals of the organization or birding in general….Rather than a total purge of eponyms, we suggest that the previous case-by-case method be resumed to remove offensive names rather than dishonoring the many people who founded ornithology in the Americas…This methodology was also endorsed by the entire North American Checklist Committee (NACC) and all but one member of the South American Checklist Committee (SACC) although the committees recommendations were ignored by the AOS.“

4. December 2023: J.V. Remsen, Jr., LSU, SACC founder and leader: Comments to AOS Council from J. V. Remsen (Chair and founder, South American Classification Committee, and member since 1984 of North American Classification Committee). Van Remsen’s initial critique of the AOS decision.
“The English Bird Names Committee report is antithetical to the AOS mission with respect to diversity and inclusion….censoring all eponyms smacks of an attempt to erase the cultural heritage and scientific accomplishment of “Western” culture in the Western Hemisphere….Because AOS names are used by federal agencies, the cost to taxpayers of those name changes needs assessment.  USFWS, USDA, NPS, etc. all use standardized AOS names….A typical reaction to the controversy from the general public and scientists [paraphrase] ‘…of all the problems in need of solutions, the AOS is focusing on THIS!’”….If AOS adopts the proposal, it will be seen as a heavy-handed edict from the Global North without consideration of negative impacts….There is no direct evidence for any tangible, positive effect, other than to appease the BN4B [Bird Names for Birds] people….All but one SACC members are in favor of a case-by-case analysis to remove eponymous English for which continued use of that eponym is harmful to people or bird conservation…The ENBC report takes it as a given that its new names will help people learn bird identification.  I regard this a classic False Premise….here we are, tearing each other apart over English bird names.“

5. 4 April 2024: AOS Fellows to AOS leadership: Resolution for a Moratorium on Changing Nonharmful Eponymous English Bird Names; PDF file, 231 AOS Fellows signers; includes name list and FAQs.
“This Resolution grew out of widespread member discord with the decision to eliminate all eponymous English bird names and the process that led to it. The lack of transparency and opportunities for participation in a decision as subjective and broadly impactful as the use of eponymous English bird names is not how many of our members want this professional society to operate. Right now, a substantial number of AOS members feel disenfranchised and ignored.“

6. 24 Apr 2024: J.V. Remsen, Jr., LSU, SACC founder and member, 26 page expansion of his Dec. 2023 critique:: Critique of the Ad Hoc English Bird Names Committee Recommendations for Council of the American Ornithological Society. It is devastating.
“[As AOS council voted to] replace all 257 eponymous bird names in the Western Hemisphere with new descriptive names….The final report itself was not made available to AOS membership for comment….A June 2023 draft of the report was made available to the members of the AOS’s NACC and SACC, on condition of secrecy. Committee members were given two weeks to respond….Collectively, NACC and SACC members voted 21-1 to reject the EBNC report and also provided extensive criticism, which was largely ignored in the final draft of the EBNC report other than correction of factual errors pointed out by committee members….[Remsen now gives them his 26-page critique].”

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