Bird-Watching and Ornithology

Photograph by John Bloomfield taken in the New Jersey Meadowlands in August 2016.

American Ornithological Society is changing the names of birds named after people. After being petitioned to change the names of several named after Slave owners and racists, they decided to blanket change all names regardless of culpability.

I welcome their rationale:

Months later, the members came to the realization that all eponymous names were problematic. “They imply possession of a species,” Nol said. “They are overwhelmingly from a particular time and social fabric, they are almost all White men, few women, and women were almost all first names. Our main goal was to increase the birdwatching public."

While many of the eponymous birds are losing the names of racists and slaveowners, it should be noted that Alexander Wilson, a weaver who lived most of his life in poverty and was forced to emigrate after his satirical poetry enraged a British capitalist, seems to be an outlier from this group.