More than 70 American and Canadian birds named after people — including several Texas species — will get new names in the coming years as the American Ornithological Society undertakes a project to give birds names that reflect the birds themselves instead of humans.
American Ornithological Society President Colleen Handel hopes the move will foster a more engaging scientific process that focuses attention on the unique features and beauty of the birds themselves.
“Everyone who loves and cares about birds should be able to enjoy and study them freely — and birds need our help now more than ever,” Handel says in a press release.
The AOS elected to completely do away with eponymous names instead of making case-by-case decisions about the person whom each bird is named after. A committee of AOS members will seek extensive community input to choose the birds' new names over the coming years.
The new names will focus on aspects of each bird, such as its physical features, behavior and geographic range. The organization will continue the new naming convention going forward as new species are discovered, and the change will affect only the birds' English names, not their Latin names.
Texas species that will receive new names include the Baird's sandpiper, Bewick's wren, Cooper's hawk, Franklin's gull, Harris's hawk, Harris's sparrow, Ross's goose, Swainson's hawk, Wilson's snipe and Woodhouse's scrub-jay. Birds are sometimes renamed for other reasons. Often, advancements in genetic technology help researchers understand the animals' relationships to each other, and sometimes what was formerly considered one species of bird is determined to be two or more species.
The move by the AOS to do away with all eponymous bird names has drawn attention from the birding community.
“It's getting people to think about why things are named the way they are,” says Richard Gibbons, director of conservation at Audubon Texas. “If you're thinking about bird names, then you're thinking about birds, you're thinking about nature, and we at Audubon Texas think that's wonderful.”
