The bird watching community is fighting about whether a bird named after an amateur ornithologist-turned-Confederate army officer needs to be renamed. In light of the Black Lives Matter protests and push to remove symbols celebrating the Confederacy across the US, birders and ornithologists alike have put more pressure on the AOS to rename McCown's Longspur through public pressure, Audubon reported. More than 200 birders and scientists have signed a petition asking the NACC to rename birds that were given 'eponymous honors and other potentially derogatory, oppressive, or simply irrelevant holdovers in English common names.' Refusing to rename McCown's Longspur, Jason Ward, a Black birdwatcher and host of Birds of America, says, to birdwatchers of color that 'Our history as ornithologists is more important than your sensibilities.' McCown is the only member of the Confederate armies who has a bird named after himself.

Source: Daily Mail July 11, 2020 21:23 UTC