Commentary: Bird names shouldn’t honor bigots and enslavers — or anyone

The American Ornithological Society‘s announcement earlier this month that it will end the naming of bird species after people is a decision of refreshing clarity. Because after two years of deliberation, the group that manages the official list of English-language bird names in the Americas came to the realization that instead of changing common bird names deemed offensive or exclusionary on a case-by-case basis, it needed to reframe the issue entirely.

So the group decided it would change the names