When we name an animal species after the person who first made it known to science, we are effectively honoring that person’s contribution. Unlike a name describing a bird’s color or habitat, there is nothing “natural” about honorific names: They imply a choice, and we can also choose not to honor the person whose name has been affixed to the species. Bachman’s sparrow, Townsend’s warbler, Bendire’s thrasher, Hammond’s flycatcher, McCown’s longspur — these are all examples of North American common bird names. For the bird community — ornithologists, bird-watchers, conservationists and more — these names are collectively referenced every day. For many, the esteem inherent in these names is unconsciously overlooked, and comfort lies in their familiarity.
Yet these honorific names — known as eponyms — also cast long, dark shadows over our beloved birds and represent colonialism, racism and inequality. It is long overdue that we acknowledge the problem of such names, and it is long overdue that we should change them.
The Rev. John Bachman was among those who argued vehemently against the abolition of slavery. “The negro,” he wrote, “is a striking and now permanent variety, like the numerous permanent varieties in domesticated animals,” adding that “his intellect, although underrated, is greatly inferior to that of the Caucasian, and that he is ... incapable of self-government.” John McCown served as a general in the Confederate Army. William Alexander Hammond, once a surgeon general of the United States, asked U.S. soldiers to send him the bodies of indigenous people for comparative anatomy studies. Charles Bendire fought in the Battle of Canyon Creek, among other violent attacks on indigenous peoples. John Kirk Townsend desecrated the graves of Native Americans and sent their skulls to Morton for his infamous cranial studies.
These men were among countless others who contributed to the library of knowledge we now rely on. They were active during the peak of scientific collection efforts in North America, efforts that were made possible by colonialism. But the westward expansion of the United States came at an incalculable cost to the country’s original inhabitants and their descendants today. To justify the harmful effects of their colonial actions, Europeans and Americans invented theories of race and civilization that conveniently labeled themselves as superior to everyone else. These theories led directly to the racism that still plagues our country today, affecting our society in countless insidious ways.