How the Baltimore oriole almost lost its name … again

Lately, local baseball fans have been preoccupied with keeping the Orioles in Baltimore, as they anxiously await a new 30-year lease for the team to continue playing at Camden Yards.

Perhaps fans should have been worried too about keeping the Baltimore in “Baltimore oriole.”

Amid a larger effort by ornithologists to reevaluate bird names and remove references to historical figures, the oriole came close to losing its Charm City moniker.

But rest assured, Baltimore. At least for now, the name is safe.

The American Ornithological Society — the authority on English names for North American birds — pledged last month to rename all birds that were named after a person, a total of 70 to 80 birds, from the Cooper’s hawk to the Wilson’s warbler.

But the Baltimore oriole, despite its connection to Lord Baltimore — the Englishman who received a charter to found the colony of Maryland in 1632 — narrowly dodged the ax. That’s because the Baltimore oriole was named for its orange- and-black coloration, which resembles that of the Baltimore family crest, not for Lord Baltimore himself.

“It is our understanding that it was not named specifically to honor him, nor was it named after the eponymous city,” read a report from the ad-hoc committee tapped by AOS to look into the bird names.

The committee recommended that the society alter all bird names directly tied to people. But it recommended against renaming the Baltimore oriole, or birds named after geographic locations. Society leadership accepted the recommendations.

Initially, some committee members thought their decision might impact the Baltimore oriole, said Erica Nol, a co-chair of the committee.

“Some members of our committee knew a lot more about the origins of the name than others,” said Nol, a professor of biology who studies birds at Trent University in Ontario, Canada. “For some of us, it was like: ‘Oh, we might have to suggest that name, too.’ But then it was pointed out that — in fact — it’s not named after a person.”

Known for the males’ bright plumage and a rich whistling song, the oriole first became a Baltimore baseball mascot in the late 1800s, for a National League team that later dissolved. The American League team that fans root for today took on the name when it relocated from St. Louis to Baltimore in 1954. By then, the oriole already had been named the Maryland state bird.

Between 1966 and 2019, the Baltimore orioles’ population has declined 36% across eastern North America, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey. The decline of American elm trees to disease, as well as deforestation more generally, have contributed to a loss of nesting habitat for the songbird, but it is considered a species of relatively low conservation concern, with an estimated global population of about 12 million.

The ornithological society’s renaming effort began with the goal of eliminating bird names associated with specific historical figures directly involved in dark periods of American history, such as slavery and the displacement and slaughter of Native Americans. It was hastened by an incident in New York City in 2020, when Black bird-watcher Christian Cooper was accosted by a white woman walking her dog in Central Park, which occurred on the same day that George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police office Derek Chauvin.

But the effort evolved into a decision to cut human names from birds altogether.

“We realized probably a couple months in, that it didn’t make sense for us to be morality police about these people,” Nol said. “If you spent all your time trying to figure out whether it was this person whose name [was used for] this bird or this bird or this bird — you’d spend all your time thinking about people instead of birds.”

The effort was borne of advocacy from within the birding community. A Maryland-based birder and ornithologist named Jordan Rutter formed Bird Names for Birds in 2020, with her fiancé Gabriel Foley, pushing the ornithological society to toss out all names chosen directly to honor people, regardless of whether they were involved in any wrongdoing. The duo were “pleasantly surprised” by the recently announced decision to do just that, Rutter said.

Now, a new committee will convene to oversee the assignment of new names for the relevant birds. In theory, that committee could decide in the future to remove Baltimore from the oriole’s name, but it’s focusing for now on the names recommended by the committee, said Irene Liu, a science editor at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology who served on Nol’s committee.

It wouldn’t be the first time that the Baltimore oriole lost its name. In 1973, the bird became the “northern oriole,” after research indicated that it was interbreeding with the Bullock’s oriole, and the two species should be combined into one. But, 22 years later, ornithologists reversed, amid evidence that the two species remained distinct.

“It didn’t necessarily go well with people, because people have a sentimental attachment to it,” Nol said of the 1970s name change. “So, I think we just took into account the attachment, as well as it not fitting into the regular category of being named after people directly.”

Perhaps it’s fortunate that the ornithologists in charge were willing to consider the Baltimore perspective.

“I think there’d be riots in the streets,” joked L. Scott Johnson, a retired professor who taught ornithology at Towson University in Baltimore County for more than 20 years.

Johnson recalled using the Baltimore oriole as a teaching tool after it got its name back in the 1990s, to explain to students the difficult process of defining species.

“Had I been teaching back in the ‘80s, I would have had to explain that the Oriole lost its name, and then people would be scowling at ornithologists for taking the name away,” Johnson said. “But I got to come in and teach after what I thought was a happy ending — and looks like it will be.”

Kevin Olmand, a biology professor who teaches ornithology at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, was preparing to discuss the ornithological society’s decision last month with one of his classes when he realized the policy could affect the beloved oriole.

But upon closer inspection, Olmand realized the black and orange songbird was safe. It probably helped that the name didn’t include an apostrophe (i.e. Baltimore’s oriole), a common convention for birds named after individuals, Olmand said.

Other oriole species saw a different fate, including Audubon’s oriole, which was named after renowned bird illustrator John James Audubon, a slaveholder who opposed abolition. Scott’s oriole, named after U.S. Army Gen. Winfield Scott, who oversaw the forced relocation of Cherokee peoples in 1838 also will be renamed.

“There is some advantage in having consistency. We did research on Audubon’s oriole, right? And someone 20 years from now might Google the new name and might not bump into our work,” Olmand said.

But that downside is outweighed by the benefits of making the name changes, Olmand said. Overwhelmingly, North American bird with human names are named after white men. Few birds are named after women or people of color.

“Just to see some of the young Black students in my lab react to that, clearly that’s really salient and really meaningful that the AOS made that change,” Olmand said.

Changing birds’ names has another upside. The new bird names could include more physical descriptions, to help budding birders and ornithologists identify them in the wild.

“I’m in favor of naming the bird after its features, like black-billed cuckoo or yellow-billed cuckoo, to be able to distinguish it from another cuckoo,” said Joe Corcoran, president of the Baltimore Bird Club. “To name it Johnson’s cuckoo, it doesn’t help in field identification.”

But Corcoran, who grew up in Fells Point, feels differently about the Baltimore oriole. The bird’s use by the baseball team has made its distinctive orange and black coloring synonymous with Baltimore.

And, it remains sentimental in a city where you still find orioles in the wild. Just bring binoculars to Cromwell Valley Park in the spring, and gaze up into the treetops, Corcoran suggested.

And the bird isn’t just a mascot for the baseball team.

“The Baltimore Bird Club — it’s our symbol, ” Corcoran said. “You can’t take that away from us!”