I don’t want to cause a fuss but it has to be recognized that it is not possible to name every bird with a feature that describes it. Else, you have chaos that is black oystercatcher, sooty oystercatcher, uniform oystercatcher…not to mention the tropical families with double digits of uniform and alike species. I really do like the idea of names showing ID traits, if they are distinctive. But changing McCown’s longspur to “thick-billed” longspur? You can’t even see this feature it is named for without having the birds lined up in a specimen drawer.
I do still like names that commemorate “random” people. Because often times they are not random, these are people who put their time, even lives, into studying birds so that we can better know these species today. And I don’t see what is so controversial about that, in my honest opinion.
I understand wanting to honor and/or recognize influential figures working with particular taxa but at the same time I wish there were more ‘local’ wildlife named after ‘local’ naturalists, environmentalists, land stewards, and scientists. (Assuming an acceptance of naming species after individuals in general …)
Which is still a functional name rather than a moniker assigned for no reason that has anything whatsoever to do with the bird. Sure, there are only so many field marks, but there are plenty of other ways to name a bird or a moth or whatever. Resplendent quetzal rolls off the tongue and modest sphinx is rather charming. Arbitrarily assigned names that honour some functionary’s murderous, racist boss are not “common” in any meaningful sense. Just get rid of them.
I can’t comment on this because I hear so much conflicting information. Either he collected the bird, or contributed to ornithology, or he didn’t. He vocally supported confederacy and had flags in his house, or he was just there at the time. I’ll come back when I find the real story.
The proportion of people living in North America who even know this bird exists is tiny. The proportion of that proportion who care about it enough to care what the AOS and ABA say it should be called is vanishingly small. There is nothing at all about losing this reference in the bird’s name that will cause harm or discomfort to entire groups of people and many will continue using the old name anyway because, their pretensions to authority notwithstanding, AOS and ABA don’t have any way to make people use their preferences. When measuring what stands to be gained against what stands to be lost I can’t imagine any carefully reasoned argument concluding that the uncertainty about any aspect of this discussion justifies refusing to address the associations (real or perceived) this name carries by calling the darned bird something else. If the ABA and AOS insist on policing common names (a wholly pointless exercise, regardless) they can at least try to do it in a manner that doesn’t create offense, unless they are content with the stereotype of birders as a bunch of superannuated white folks in floppy hats.
Elliott Coues was an active scientist. Rivoli was not and yet there is no Coues’ flycatcher anymore but we now have Rivoli’'s hummingbird in the US. Strange.