Cooper's Hawk and Franklin's Spruce Grouse will be given new names

Birds across North America are going to be renamed.

It won't be all of them as it only affects the species that have been named after someone.

Local biologist and steward of Frank Lake, Greg Wagner, said there are two reasons for this.

"In North America, the American Ornithological Society is responsible for naming birds. Over the last several years they've examined get rid of people's names for birds for two reasons basically. One, because people of maybe dubious character or in a historic light are looked at in a dubious way. And two, names of people don't really tell you much about the bird. A lot of bird names are based on behaviour or their geographic location or how they look."

Wagner says they won't be renaming all the birds at once, it's going to take time.

"The American Ornithological Society has just launched a program, started a pilot program, with 10 or 20 birds and get public input to see what people want to call them, just so that they're more descriptive and maybe provide a little bit more information about the bird, rather than just the person's name."

If you're wondering about the Canada goose, because it's named after a geographic location, it's fine and won't be renamed.

Some of the other birds that either call Alberta home or visit us during migration that will eventually be renamed include the Coopers hawk, Swainson's hawk, Franklin's spruce grouse, Clark's grebe, Ross's goose, Barrow's goldeneye, Baird's sandpiper, Wilson's phalarope, Franklin's gull, Bonaparte's gull, Thayer's gull, Vaux's swift, Lewis's woodpecker, Hammond's flycatcher, Swainson's thrush, Brewer's blackbird and six different species of sparrows.

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