Changing Eponymous Names
Jon L Dunn
The decision by the AOS Council, effectively their board of directors, on 1 November was deeply disturbing on many levels. As a member of NACC (since 2000) we had seen this coming, but the breadth of the decision was still stunning. In part, and at the request of the AOS, we had been working on a gradual overview of historical figures for which birds had been named after. It was a "go slow" approach as should any prosecution and defense of any figure being evaluated for cancellation. Other objectionable names for species names such as Inca Dove were being reviewed.
The decision to purge all eponymous names from the AOS area ended our review. Two NACC members promptly resigned, one within minutes of the decision; he had served for a number of decades on NACC and was the senior member of the committee. The contributions of the two were substantial, invaluable, and they will be sorely missed. They are in my opinion, not replaceable.
The AOS has dictated the purge will start with species that are well known for Canada and the U.S., basically the area that has been part of the AOU/AOS area since its inception in 1883. Responsibilities for taxonomy and nomenclature fell to their Check-list Committee and was the policy up until now.
It appears now that the nomenclature part, at least the English nomenclature, will no longer be part of NACC's responsibility and a newly created committee in the future will take on that task. While I firmly oppose what happened, the AOS Council did have the right to do what they did. Keep in mind they did no public polling to see how ornithologists and the birding public felt about this despite the fact that in 2020 the Council had decided to do public polling. This was never done. Nor was the AOS's membership asked for their opinion, including their Elective Members and their Fellows. Since they weren't asked for their opinion, many are delivering that opinion now, an activity that is both useful and fully warranted.
Still, in my opinion the purge will soon start for the 89 (my count) eponymously named species that are found most regularly in the U.S. Canada. An additional 26 species are found south of the U.S. border, or in the Caribbean. These regions along with Hawaii were added to the AOU area in 1983 with the publication of the 6th edition of the Check-list. Regular non-breeding visitors to North America number 8 species while rare, casual, and accidental species number 10, 9 and 12 species respectively. While the majority (58%) are so called "our birds." 42% aren't.
The AOS will do outreach to individuals and organizations in Latin America to see how they feel about the changing of the English names and how to go about it. What happens if they say "no thank you?" Many of those species that are of rare to accidental occurrence have well-established English names. What right do we have to change those names? Forcing new English names seems like more examples of "American Imperialism," the very thing that the movement to replace English names decries against ("colonialism".)
The battle to save the 89 may be lost, but there are 65 more that can and should be politely, but vigorously, debated. Regarding those eponymously named species from Middle America and the West Indies, these include the replacement of Zeledon's Antbird, the father of Costan Rican ornithology and for which their ornithological journal (Zeledonia) is named. Or Gundlach's Hawk being replaced from Cuba. Gundlach is worshiped by Cuban ornithologists and is certainly the father of Cuban ornithology. He arrived from Germany in the middle of the 19th century and made Cuba his home. His contributions to ornithology and other fields were invaluable.
But, of all of these individuals, the replacement of Zino's Petrel, seems to be to be the most unforgivable. Paul Zino, with the assistance of others, rediscovered this resident petrel that now bears his name. Not only did he rediscover it, but he and his son Frank have dedicated their lives to saving this critically endangered species. It breeds at the highest elevations on the island of Madeira in the eastern Atlantic. By the AOS mandate, the reason for a name replacement is that it is on the list of North American species, and the 1 November announcement said that all eponymous names would be changed. Keep in mind that Zino's Petrel has occurred only once in the AOS area, a bird photographed and identified later off Hatteras, North Carolina in September 1995. I'm sure Europeans will appreciate our need to rename this most endangered species based on its single occurrence in our area.
It was intended to go after changing the eponymous names for South American birds too, over 100 which are eponyms. The South American Check-list Committee within weeks voted to withdraw their association with AOS so this probably will not happen, unless a new committee of eponym opposed collaborators is formed.
If there is one useful thing about the name changes, it is that maybe birders might concentrate on scientific names, the name in italics next to the English name. Nearly two thirds of the English names which are eponymous also have eponymous scientific names. If one is so offended by the eponymous English names, how will they live with the scientific names remaining? The reason they will have to live with it for now is that scientific names can't be changed on a whim as they are governed by the ICZN (The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature), founded in 1895. I very much doubt they will offer any support for those wanting to cancel eponymous scientific names, although who knows?
I never expected events to have proceeded to the point where we are now. Learning scientific names, particularly learning the genera, and which species are congeners are helpful to birders in all sorts of ways. Learning the linear sequence of families and species within a family also offers many teachable moments, not to mention that for most the eponymous names will live on in the specific epithets (the 2nd part of the binomial name) at which point one has to wonder what this entire exercise has accomplished.
