Bird names and Racism. My opinion of BNFB.
as we as a society progress to be more tolerant towards people of colour, many changes have been made in Science to adapt to this. As we look back on our past we realize that many of the on well renowned figures of which there are either many statues of, or there are many things named after, were not up to our current standard of progressiveness. This has come with both negative and positive effects. While for many of these people you could argue that it was "a different time", some were just plain evil people, such as Christopher Columbus and Andrew Jackson. I do not care what time period you are in Genocide has never been accepted and should never be idolized. However for most, it is indeed unfair to expect figures from decades past to be up to standard of the current, when both the people they were surrounded by and the world they lived in was not. As streets are renamed and statues are toppled, some see it as "not enough". After the Central Park birding incident of 2020, many changes were made in the ever increasing community of Bird watching, including positive changes such as Black Birders Week. But one change has happened which I believe, while coming from a good place, is stupid. That is, Bird Names for Birds, or BNFB.
Changing a species name in my opinion, should never be done unless necessary for scientific and well explained reasons, such as to avoid confusion with other species, or to make it more specific and descriptive. Do not overrule being scientific and fair, for being deemed "woke". The reason why we should not go renaming every single bird name that is named after a person is to avoid confusion. When there are now two names for a bird, many problems can arise, especially when the reason for changing it is little to none. This movement will only increase divides in the birding community and make research and scholarly articles useless tools of times past. And for what? The "Thick-billed Longspur" has been the McCown's Longspur since I first read its name in a Birds of Alberta book. No, I do not care that he fought in the civil war for the Confederates. at least 1/4th of the US's populations ancestors did. It's not like it was voluntary either, besides he was a renowned army general for the US Army in the Mexican-American war. This movement is useless beyond belief and I will never use these new names. The only one which made the slightest sense was that of the Long-tailed Duck, since it's old names was literally a slur.
Like the NACC said political correctness is not enough to merit a name change which will cause confusion and the change of many bird databases.
