Ornithologists and birders have long wrestled with the troubled history behind many bird names.
By Isvett Verde Staff Editor, Opinion |
During the winter, I often compare myself to the bird of paradise flower, a common sight in South Florida, which I once called home. Its striking blooms — hues of orange, pink and even purple — resemble the head of a bird. Much like me, it withers when the temperature drops. |
But there is one thing I look forward to during this time of year. When the cold air denudes the lush, overgrown trees visible from my kitchen window, a northern friend at last comes into view. A shock of red in an otherwise drab landscape, the male northern cardinal, which visits each year, delights. Its crest evokes the bird of paradise flower — a smaller, crimson brother from another mother. |
I only recently learned that the cardinal is named after Roman Catholic cardinals, who wear red robes and caps. In the 1980s the name was changed to northern cardinal to avoid confusion with other similarly named birds. |
I thought of my red-feathered friend as I read this week's guest essay by our contributing writer Margaret Renkl. This month the American Ornithological Society announced that it would rename birds named for human beings. The new names will reflect "some trait associated with the actual bird," she writes, "and not with the colonial explorer who first identified it." |
Renkl explains that some birds were named for people, like the naturalist and slaveholder John James Audubon and people who persecuted and exploited Indigenous people. "The idea that some of the most beautiful birds in North America still carry those ugly names is objectionable to a lot of us," she writes. |
"This whole Audubon controversy was a huge thing!" my sister-in-law, an avid birder, texted me when I shared Renkl's essay with her. It was a northern cardinal that piqued her interest in birding about four years ago. "I had often wondered who came up with these names." |
Names can shape the way we view the world around us, even if we're not always aware of it. They also carry "social and cultural resonances," Renkl writes. While eponyms rooted in identifying characteristics may not have much of an "effect on the birds' prospects for survival in a burning world," she adds, it's a start. |
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