I didn’t really know anything about honorific names for birds and I’m glad you shared this. I did sign the petition asking for these to change. The entire newsletter was really interesting and am so glad Joe S. forwarded it to me. I’m now a subscriber. Thanks, Conor!
This was an excellent post Conor. I haven’t spent much time in the beach (like 4 days total) and never knew about the shark app and the flags. Do you ever pick particular beaches to try and spot a shark?
Are there any particular birds you want to be renamed? There’s also a google doc floating around of a list of “problematic” names- common & scientific. It’s not just limited to racist names, but also confusing ones.
Thank you Courtney! I have never really gone out of my way to see a shark, but one way you could try and see them would be to go to tidal rivers or salt-marshy areas and look for the fins of dogfish sharks. I've seen those in South Carolina.
I think we should just get rid of all honorific names all at once for many reasons--an additional one is that they're a barrier for new birders. Cooper's Hawk is a pretty meaningless name that doesn't help you remember the species. But that's a good point, there are also poorly named species like the Ring-necked Duck: https://www.audubon.org/news/its-time-rename-ring-necked-duck
"Common" is a pretty useless identifier too--Common Tern, Common Yellowthroat.
I didn’t really know anything about honorific names for birds and I’m glad you shared this. I did sign the petition asking for these to change. The entire newsletter was really interesting and am so glad Joe S. forwarded it to me. I’m now a subscriber. Thanks, Conor!
Thanks for reading and subscribing, Mary! And for signing the petition!
This was an excellent post Conor. I haven’t spent much time in the beach (like 4 days total) and never knew about the shark app and the flags. Do you ever pick particular beaches to try and spot a shark?
Are there any particular birds you want to be renamed? There’s also a google doc floating around of a list of “problematic” names- common & scientific. It’s not just limited to racist names, but also confusing ones.
Thank you Courtney! I have never really gone out of my way to see a shark, but one way you could try and see them would be to go to tidal rivers or salt-marshy areas and look for the fins of dogfish sharks. I've seen those in South Carolina.
I think we should just get rid of all honorific names all at once for many reasons--an additional one is that they're a barrier for new birders. Cooper's Hawk is a pretty meaningless name that doesn't help you remember the species. But that's a good point, there are also poorly named species like the Ring-necked Duck: https://www.audubon.org/news/its-time-rename-ring-necked-duck
"Common" is a pretty useless identifier too--Common Tern, Common Yellowthroat.