The Free Press covers the bird

Several readers sent me a link to this article because they saw me quoted in it; I’d missed it even though I subscribe to the Free Press. It's a pretty fair and dispassionate description of the fight in the bird community to rename birds named after bad people like Audubon (who had slaves)—or even rename all birds (and, yes, all animals) that are named after any human.

I’ve written about this several times, and while I recognize that some names are offensive, I tend to be wary of the issue, as is my friend Doug Futuyma quoted below. I think it's better to contextualize history rather than erase it, for you can re-contextualize but you can't un-erase.

But one thing I can't countenance (nor can science countenance) is the argument that the Latin binomials, or "scientific names" of organisms, should be changed. This is really a moot point, for the International Commission for Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) has already ruled that scientific names of animals, for the sake of clarity in the literature, cannot be changed. The equivalent botanical organization hasn't yet issued a diktat.

One thing I do question, though, is whether all this effort in changing names will actually do anything to improve relationships between ethnic groups, fix American society, or even bring minorities flocking into bird groups. To me it seems like performative wokeness rather than a genuine effort to improve society. It avoids doing substantive work by doing easy stuff: just changing names of animals.

You can read the piece, I hope, by clicking on the link below.

A few quotes for your edification. Note that people on both sides are quoted in the article.

Chuck Almdale, a 76-year-old birder, is against any name changes:

Almdale, in Los Angeles, made it clear he was against the change both nationally and locally at his 800-strong Santa Monica Bay Audubon Society, posting about name changes on his chapter's blog. His local club didn't even take the debate to a vote, he told me.

"We decided not to judge Audubon by modern standards," Almdale said.

He says the division isn't red versus blue. It's far-left versus center-left. And it's more generational than racial.

"I’m basically a progressive," says Almdale, who drives a Prius, voted for Hillary and Biden, and calls himself a Never Trumper. "I’m old, I’m white, I’m a man. So what? I’m angry. Audubon's known for birds, for helping and enjoying them. If we change, what are we?"

He calls the battle over language a "divider" and "propaganda."

Like many birders, he's obsessed with names, particularly McCown's longspur, a rare ground-feeder that lives in the grasslands of the Great Plains and was named after the man who first discovered it: Confederate soldier John McCown. "It's a hard bird to find," Almdale says, adding that McCown was "a frontier ornithologist." No one knows what his beliefs were, Almdale says. But after petitions and a fierce online campaign, the American Ornithological Society officially renamed McCown's longspur to the thick-billed longspur in 2020.

Today there are 155 North American bird names on a change list that "represent colonialism," according to two ornithologists who started the list in 2020. That includes Hammond's flycatcher, named after William Alexander Hammond, a U.S. surgeon general, and Townsend's warbler, named after John Kirk Townsend, a Quaker naturalist who hailed from a family of abolitionists. The work of both men, according to a Washington Post op-ed written by the change list authors, led to the desecration of Native American graves.

"We cannot subjectively decide—especially if the adjudicators are White—that some names can be retained because they are associated with less abhorrent pasts than others," the ornithologists Gabriel Foley and Jordan Rutter argued in their piece. "We must remove all eponymous names. The stench of colonialism has saturated each of its participants, and the honor inherent within their names must be revoked."

But Almdale says the whole controversy is overblown. "They want to change the name of that bird or of Audubon simply because they don't like that person. That's a stupid reason to change a name," he says, nudging a dead catfish at the water's edge.

Christian Cooper is the black birder who, three years ago, was the subject of national headlines when a white woman called the cops when she felt threatened by his presence. He's in favor of name changes, but sees both sides of the issue. He does, however, feel that retaining the name "Audubon Society", which the national society and most of its branches are doing, will drive away minorities:

Christian tells me over the phone that the entire Central Park incident was "nonsense," exaggerated by reporters. But he didn't blow off the debate over Audubon's name change for his local NYC chapter, which has around 10,000 members. In March, he and other board members voted that the group should rebrand, but "we haven't announced what the new name will be because we don't know yet." He said a new brand will help preserve the group's future as more people become aware of their namesake's past.

"They’ll find out," Cooper said. "Most people think Audubon is some German highway. But people will find out. When they do, and they hear that national decided not to change the name, they’ll walk."

. . . "I passionately feel both sides because I’ve been a lifelong birder and lifelong Audubon member. To me, Audubon means the protection of birds and their habitat. That's Audubon. Then as a black person, you find this out, and oh no, that's got to go. It was very much a wrestling match for me as far as what side to fall on."

My friend Doug Futuyma, an emeritus professor of evolution at Stony Brook, whose name I suggested to the author of this piece, is on the fence:

"This is huge and it goes way beyond Audubon," says Douglas Futuyma, 81, a retired Stony Brook University professor and lifelong birder who recently chased a yellow-throated warbler through Manhattan with Christian Cooper. He isn't sure what's right, but worries "Are we going to delete history? Will we close the great paintings in the Met because they objectify the female body? Will Audubon lose effectiveness as the face for conservation?"

Another proponent of name change:

Glenn Nelson disagrees with Almdale that the Audubon Society should live and let live. The 65-year-old Japanese American is a former journalist who became the Seattle chapter's community director last year, and led the successful push to change its name.

"I woke up one morning, turned to my wife, and said the Audubon name harms marginalized communities, consequences be damned," Nelson said.

I disagree with Nelson, and so I weighed in:

Nelson admits "we’ve had members and donors stop giving us money," but he wouldn't share specifics, saying that his crusade "makes me a villain to a lot of people."

A handful of local members I spoke to don't entirely dispute that characterization of Nelson, but feared saying so on the record. Jerry Coyne—an evolutionary biologist and the author of Why Evolution is True, who penned a blog post about Audubon's name controversy—isn't so shy. Speaking about Nelson, he said, "He's pretending to do something to foster racial equity. In reality, he's making himself feel good and promoting his virtues by saying he's creating a safe space for all ethnicities, which he's not doing because he's turning others off."

But Nelson, the father of two women, said he doesn't care. "I’m doing this for me, for my daughters," by railing against the "white supremacist framework built into the DNA of the outdoors."

Umm. . . "white supremacist framework built into the DNA of the outdoors"? What does he mean? First of all, nobody prevents any member of any minority group from enjoying the outdoors: hiking, camping, visiting National Parks, and so on. If Nelson's saying that there are some bigots in outdoors organizations, well, that's entirely possible. But if he's saying, which seems likely, that structural racism is pervasive among outdoorspeople (and how could that be?), if he's arguing that "white supremacy is built into groups promoting the outdoors and conservation," then he's dead wrong.

After I reread what Nelson said, I don't feel so bad about being willing to go on the record. Anyway, I’ve gone on the record about this issue several times before.