Oceanic Birds of the World (1 Viewer)

andyadcock said:

Is 'Codfish' a literal translation of the name given by the Islanders? I have no issue in this case with Whenua Hou Diving-Petrel, it's not a completely foreign name, I wonder what the committee had agaisnst it? Was that their reason 'not English enough'?

What do you mean by 'the current climate', you mean pressure being applied from certain quarters?

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Hi Andy, no Whenua Hou means new land, Codfish was given to the island by sealers.

New Zealand has done a lot to 'de-colonise' place names & a lot of places now go by both Maori & English names. There is more & more use of Maori names for birds now & its common in other groups too - I think with trees & shrubs pretty much everything is known principally by it's Maori name.

I understand your stand-point, I don't agree with it, but either way I think this case is different - you've got a bird reduced to one tiny relict population on one island & the people who see the island as their spiritual home were specifically asked to name it

Dave Boyle said:

[...] you've got a bird reduced to one tiny relict population on one island & the people who see the island as their spiritual home were specifically asked to name it

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Nitpicking, perhaps, but, as I understand the OD, the Ngāi Tahu were not asked to give the bird an English name. They were asked to select the scientific (i.e., main translingual) name -- this produced whenuahouensis, which obviously no one is trying to change.
Regarding the vernacular, the authors stated, quite explicitly: "We propose the English common name ‘Whenua Hou Diving Petrel’."

Dave Boyle said:

New Zealand has done a lot to 'de-colonise' place names & a lot of places now go by both Maori & English names. There is more & more use of Maori names for birds now & its common in other groups too - I think with trees & shrubs pretty much everything is known principally by it's Maori name.

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Yes, correct. Wish the Australians & Americans would do likewise! Far too many trees called 'pine' which aren't pines, and called 'cedar' which aren't cedars.

• Whenua Hou Diving Petrel (alt. ditto Diving-petrel) Pelecanoides whenuahouensis FISCHER et al 2018 (OD in Laurent's post #22, alt./or here, also see here, with some nice additional photos).

As of now IOC (ver. 10.1, 2020) has it as Pelecanoides georgicus whenuahouensis, this far without an English/Common name, but BirdLife International already (as of August 2019) has it as Whenua Hou Diving-petrel Pelecanoides whenuahouensis (here), as well as Wiki (here).

If IOC accept the split I hope they respect the Authors, and their "Whenua Hou Diving Petrel’ (regardless with, or without, how to/the use of, hyphen or/and Capital letters, of course, that's a different topic ).

I think it's a perfect fit, both well-advised and justified – a rare, unique name, on a rare, unique (and Critically Endangered) bird.

As far as I am concerned, I sure would love to have a whenuahoudykpetrell in the Swedish (World) List! It's far better than Codfish Diving Petrel (which in Swedish would be codfishdykpetrell, or even worse; codfishislanddykpetrell). Those birds themselves has very little to do with any (blue) codfishes (Parapercis colias). That they breed on an Island named after one of the Island's main sources of income is (in my mind) a bit irrelevant for its Common name.

Björn

PS. Not to confuse with Codfish Island, Ontario, Canada.

Calalp said:

As far as I am concerned, I sure would love to have a whenuahoudykpetrell in the Swedish (World) List! It's far better than Codfish Diving Petrel (which in Swedish would be codfishdykpetrell, or even worse; codfishislanddykpetrell). ...

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Not Torskfiskdykpetrell or Torskfisködykpetrell? 3

Calalp said:

If IOC accept the split I hope they respect the Authors, and their "Whenua Hou Diving Petrel’ (regardless with, or without, how to/the use of, hyphen or/and Capital letters, of course, that's a different topic ).

I think it's a perfect fit, both well-advised and justified – a rare, unique name, on a rare, unique (and Critically Endangered) bird.

As far as I am concerned, I sure would love to have a whenuahoudykpetrell in the Swedish (World) List! It's far better than Codfish Diving Petrel (which in Swedish would be codfishdykpetrell, or even worse; codfishislanddykpetrell). Those birds themselves has very little to do with any (blue) codfishes (Parapercis colias). That they breed on an Island named after one of the Island's main sources of income is (in my mind) a bit irrelevant for its Common name.

Björn

PS. Not to confuse with Codfish Island, Ontario, Canada.

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In this case, I totally agree.