The Audubon shearwater is disappearing. The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List of Threatened Species has maintained that this bird is in no danger. Ornithology reference sites describe its presence across almost the entire American continent, from the northern Arctic to southern Brazil. However, in one or two years' time, this great sea traveler will no longer exist – at least under that name. On November 1, the American Ornithological Society (AOS) announced that it would be changing the common names of all birds on the continent "named directly after people (eponyms), along with other names deemed offensive and exclusionary."

To the press release published by this scientific society, its president, Colleen Handel, added a personal statement: "There is power in a name, and some English bird names have associations with the past that continue to be exclusionary and harmful today," she wrote. "We need a much more inclusive and engaging scientific process that focuses attention on the unique features and beauty of the birds themselves." From now on, common names will therefore reference the animals' physical characteristics or their habitat: White-faced shearwater, long-tailed shearwater, burrowing shearwater, etc. An open Community Congress hosted by the AOS' Diversity & Inclusion Committee was convened to inform the AOS Council's decisions.

Admittedly, those American figures commemorated in the continent's winged animals' names have until now not all been the most commendable. In 2020, the research society had already renamed the thick-billed longspur – previously known as McCown's longspur. Honoring a Confederate general and defender of slavery in this way no longer seemed possible, regardless of his love of birds. Yet the list goes on. Didn't Scott's oriole commend another general, who – while loyal to the Union – was a commander in the Trail of Tears, the forced removal of native populations from their ancestral homelands, including the Cherokees? Additionally, should Townsend's warbler immortalize John Kirk Townsend (1809-1851), who hunted down birds in America's skies but also skulls in its indigenous peoples' graves?

Painter and naturalist Jean-Jacques Audubon (John James Audubon to Americans, 1785-1851) has so far posed a problem of a rather different scale. On the face of things, he was the most celebrated figure in American ornithological history and the author of a considerable body of work. On the other side, he was a landowner and slaveholder who always opposed abolition. In March, the National Audubon Society decided to retain his name. The institution's staff union has abandoned it.

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