The AOS looked very carefully at this issue, and is proceeding slowly and carefully. I've been delighted seeing how many young people and minorities are welcoming this long-needed change. As a member of the AOU/AOS since the 70s, I know this was an open process for which all of us members were invited throughout to participate or ask questions.
Perhaps it's because I AM so old and have been birding for so long that I am taking this more in stride than some people reacting so emotionally to simple changes in some birds' English names. When I started birding, my brand new field guides were already obsolete as far as many names went, and I simply got into the practice of writing the new names in as species were lumped or split. I wish the people getting so emotional about this put as much energy into actually protecting birds. Best, Laura Erickson Duluth, MN On Thu, Jan 25, 2024 at 6:19 PM Van Remsen <vnrem...@gmail.com> wrote: > Minnesota Birders: I’m sure most of you have heard about the decision by > the Am. Orn. Soc. leadership to remove all eponyms, starting first with 80 > or so North American birds, roughly 25 of which are on the Kansas list. > Lewis & Clark are among those scheduled to be purged (of Lewis’s Woodpecker > and Clark’s Nutcracker). All 240+ eponymous bird names in the W. Hemisphere > are on the eventual hit list. The North American Classification Committee > (widely referred to in past as “AOU Checklist Committee”) voted 12-0 to > reject a blanket purge and in favor of due process for the few names > considered offensive or exclusionary; we were among the only people (on the > condition of secrecy) among the 2,800 AOS members allowed to see and > comment on the recommendation of the AOS ad hoc English Bird Names > Committee before the decision was made by leadership. > > > > Why should you care? At this point all organizations that follow AOS > classification, including eBird and MOU, will have to use the newly coined > names even. If you oppose the blanket purge of all honorific bird names, or > even if you are just upset by the way this was handled by AOS leadership, > please hit the link below and “sign” the petition, which already has more > than 4600 signatures, including many prominent birders and ornithologists. > Your name will be hidden from public view unless you add comments (but I > would encourage you to add your comments]: > > > > https://chng.it/VHyjZp5snr > > > > The petition contains links to several essays and publications on why > purging all eponyms is a bad idea. The theme of the petition is that there > are more productive and less divisive ways to address racism than > dishonoring the many founders of American ornithology and that a > case-by-case approach on the few names considered offensive is better. > > > > The AOS website links to the report and its arguments for a total purge, > which has also been endorsed by Cornell Lab of Ornithology/eBird and the > ABA leadership: > > https://americanornithology.org/ > > > > In contrast, those opposed to the total purge have no resources with which > to protest other than with such a grass-roots petition. Attempts to post > links to the petition to several state listservs and Facebook groups have > been blocked. > > > > I hope that my post does not devolve into a divisive debate on this forum > over the pros and cons of eponyms. At this point, I think almost every > point of view, for or against a total purge of them, has been expressed in > other forums, so a sequence of back-and-forth statements are unlikely to do > anything but cause more friction. Those opposed to the purge can put their > comments with their signature at the petition rather than here. I also > emphasize this is NOT about whether you personally like or dislike eponyms > but rather about tolerance of and respect for opposing views. Those who do > like eponyms, or simply object to a major destabilization of names, many > used for more than a century, simply would like to keep their tiny market > share of less than 5% of our bird names rather than have their opinion > dismissed. > > > > Van Remsen > > ---- > General information and guidelines for posting: > https://moumn.org/listservice.html > Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html > > During the pandemic, the MOU encourages you to stay safe, practice social > distancing, and continue to bird responsibly. > -- Laura Erickson Duluth, MN she/her/hers For the love, understanding, and protection of birds https://lauraerickson.substack.com/ www.lauraerickson.com <http://www.lauraerickson.com/> <http://www.lauraerickson.com/> There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of birds. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature--the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter. --Rachel Carson To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory. --Howard Zinn Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail. ---- General information and guidelines for posting: https://moumn.org/listservice.html Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html During the pandemic, the MOU encourages you to stay safe, practice social distancing, and continue to bird responsibly.
