In the United States, several dozen species of birds will be renamed to no longer refer to the slavery past

It is a movement which began in the United States with the names of military bases and warships, and which will now apply to birds: the American Ornithological Society announced that it had decided to rename about 80 birds starting next year. These are species found in the United States, but also in Canada. Their names are often linked to those who discovered them, or refer to moments in history that she no longer wants. Most of the time these are names linked to slavery.

For the organization, “there is power in a name, and some English bird names have associations with the past that continue to be exclusionary and harmful today”. The president of the ornithological society explains in a press release that she decided to rename all birds that bear the name of a person, rather than examining each bird individually.

Human surnames replaced by physical characteristics of birds

Already in 2020, a small prairie songbird, McCown’s Longspur, was renamed to Large-billed Sparrow, because the amateur naturalist who gave it its name became a general in the Confederate Army during the Civil War.

Other examples: the Hammond’s flycatcher, which is named after a surgeon in the American army who notably had slaves; Scott’s oriole, which refers to a pro-Union general who organized the forced removal of Indians, notably the Cherokees; or the Audubon shearwater, named in homage to one of the fathers of American ornithology, Jean-Jacques Audubon, who was also a slave owner and opposed to abolition. Like the others, this seabird will be renamed based on a physical characteristic. It is a commission made up partly of the public which will decide.