The National Audubon Society is an American non-profit environmental organization dedicated to conservation of birds and their habitats. Located in the United States and incorporated in 1905, Audubon is one of the oldest of such organizations in the world. There are completely independent Audubon Societies in the United States, which were founded several years earlier such as the Massachusetts Audubon Society, Indiana Audubon Society, and Connecticut Audubon Society. The societies are named for 19th century naturalist John James Audubon.
Attwater's prairie chicken is a highly endangered subspecies of the greater prairie chicken that is native to coastal Texas and formerly Louisiana in the United States.
Black Twitter is an internet community largely consisting of the Black diaspora of users on the social network X, focused on issues of interest to the black community Feminista Jones described it in Salon as "a collective of active, primarily African-American Twitter users who have created a virtual community proving adept at bringing about a wide range of sociopolitical changes." A similar Black Twitter community arose in South Africa in the early 2010s.
Hashtag activism refers to the use of Twitter's hashtags for Internet activism. The hashtag has become one of the many ways that social media contributes to civic engagement and social movements. The use of the hashtag on social media provides users with an opportunity to share information and opinions about social issues in a way that others (followers) can interact and engage as part of a larger conversation with the potential to create change. The hashtag itself consists of a word or phrase that is connected to a social or political issue, and fosters a place where discourse can occur. Social media provides an important platform for historically marginalized populations. Through the use of hashtags these groups are able to communicate, mobilize, and advocate for issues less visible to the mainstream.
Dudley Edmondson is an American writer and photographer specializing primarily in outdoors and nature writing and photography. He currently lives in Duluth, Minnesota. His books include What's That Flower?, and The Black & Brown Faces in America's Wild Places, the latter focusing on African Americans in the outdoors, a subject on which he has spoken widely across the United States and for which a fellowship administered by the Greater Seattle YMCA was named for him.
Ashley Lindalía Walker is an astrochemist, science communicator, and activist. In response to police brutality against Black Americans and sparked by the success of Black Birders Week, Walker co-organized #BlackinChem, #BlackInAstro, and #BlackInPhysics to highlight and amplify the voices of Black researchers and scholars in these fields.
Jason Ward is an American naturalist, birder, and activist. He hosted the 2019 television documentary series Birds of North America, and is the co-founder and former CEO of "The BlackAFinSTEM Collective".
Corina Newsome is an American ornithologist, birder, science communicator, and graduate student at Georgia Southern University. In response to the racism faced by Black birder Christian Cooper in Central Park, Newsome co-organized Black Birders Week to celebrate Black birders.
Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman is a Ghanaian-born American activist and writer. She is a co-founder and former CEO of the Sadie Collective, as well as a co-founder and co-organizer of Black Birders Week.
Earyn McGee is an American herpetologist and science communicator. She is an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) IF/THEN Ambassador and a 2020 AAAS Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellow. In response to the racism faced by Black birdwatcher Christian Cooper in the Central Park birdwatching incident, McGee co-organized Black Birders Week to celebrate Black birders.
The year 2020 in birding and ornithology.
Bird Names for Birds is a campaign to change the common names of American birds named after people, and to redress the recognition in ornithology of figures with racist or colonial pasts. Launched in June 2020 by ornithologists Jordan E. Rutter and Gabriel Foley with a public petition, in the midst of the George Floyd protests and in the aftermath of an incident in Central Park that paved the way to Black Birders Week, the movement emerged after several years of social activism by multiple American ornithologists and birders, many of whom are not affiliated with Bird Names for Birds but remain devoted to the cause. The inaugural petition, dated June 22, 2020, and co-signed by 182 individuals, urged the American Ornithological Society (AOS) to "acknowledge the issue of eponymous and honorific common names, to outline a plan to change harmful common names, and to prioritize the implementation of this plan". In 2023, the AOS formally announced that it would change all English-language bird names that are named directly after people.
Deja Perkins is an American urban ecologist. She has spoken out vocally against racism in STEM fields, is a co-organizer of Black Birders Week, and is president of the BlackAFinSTEM collective. She is currently a graduate student at North Carolina State University.
BlackInChem is an organization which aims to highlight and increase the visibility of black chemists. The organization was created as a response to Black Birders Week. The inaugural event ran from August 10 - 15, 2020.
Black In Neuro is a grassroots initiative that looks to connect, celebrate and amplify black voices working in neuroscience. In particular, Black in Neuro looked to increase visibility of black neuroscientists, who face challenges in navigating the majority white world of academia. The group was created as a response to the Black Lives Matter movement and the #BLACKandSTEM initiatives that were inspired worldwide. The inaugural event ran from July 27 – August 2, 2020, and they have hosted annual Black In Neuro Week events since.
Tiara Moore works at the Washington state branch of The Nature Conservancy. She is known for her leadership in organizing the Black in Marine Science week and her work in social activism.
Tanisha Marie Williams is an American botanist and the founder of #BlackBotanistsWeek. Williams created the hashtag in 2020 as an initiative to promote Black botanists and to share their work and life experiences on social media. She was inspired after seeing similar initiatives for Black scientists in other fields. Williams' doctoral work focused on predicting plant adaptability to climate change, specifically plants in the Pelargonium genus in the Cape Floristic Region of South Africa.
New York City is home to a large birding community and diverse range of bird species. Though it is the most populous and most densely populated city in the United States, NYC is home to a range of ecological habitats and is situated along the Atlantic Flyway, a major route for migrating birds. More than 400 species have been recorded in the city, and their concentration in the city's urban parklands, forests, marshes, and beaches has made birding a popular activity in the city, especially after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chelsea Connor is a Dominican herpetologist and birder. Her research concerns the interaction between native and introduced Anolis lizards in the Commonwealth of Dominica. While a student, she co-founded #BlackBirdersWeek. She is an advocate for Black people in the United States being out in nature, and feeling safer when they do so.
Ashley Gary is an American science communicator and co-organizer for #BlackBirdersWeek.
