1 min.
Opportunity missed
ABOUT A DOZEN years ago, this magazine’s name was changed from Birder’s World to BirdWatching. The move, which was meant to broaden our audience, sparked some angry emails, as I suspect this editorial will, but overall, the decision was positive. More readers found us, and most of those who were already with us understood the reason behind the change.
Now, the birding community is once again debating a name, albeit one that is more consequential than this magazine’s moniker. Over the last several months, chapters of the National Audubon Society in Seattle, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Portland, Oregon, and Madison, Wisconsin, decided to drop “Audubon” from their names. In the early 1900s, the national group named itself after John James Audubon, the prolific bird artist of the early 1800s, and its…
