OVERVIEW

The IOC World Bird List is an open access resource of the international community of ornithologists. The original goal of the project was and still is to facilitate worldwide communication in ornithology and conservation based on an unified set of English names of world birds. As the first step towards this goal, a worldwide committee of ornithologists recommended a print-based set of English names that followed explicit guidelines for spelling and construction (Gill & Wright 2006). We summarize below the history of that work and its original relationship to the International Ornithological Committee (IOC), which convened an international congress every four years. The IOC has since reorganized itself into a nonprofit membership organization, the International Ornithologists’ Union (IOU), which is setting new goals and priorities.

To  align the recommended English names with the growing industry of taxonomic revisions , a new  team released a web-based version of the list in 2008, updated quarterly.  The updates included changes of recommended English names, additions of newly described species, corrections of nomenclature, and updates of species taxonomy. The online list of world bird species grew to include subspecies and recently extinct ones. It now provides a species taxonomy for many databases, including Wikipedia Commons, ITIS and regional works worldwide.  The website project maintained an informal affiliation with the IOU, including some of the original team members. We retain the well-established IOC name, a possible acronym for the International Ornithological Community.

The IOC World Bird List now complements three other primary world bird lists that differ slightly in their primary goals and taxonomic philosophy, i.e. The Clements Checklist of the Birds of the World, The Howard & Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World, 4^th Edition, and HBW Alive/Bird Life International.   Improved alignment and unification of these independent taxonomic works is a goal of the International Ornithologists Union, starting with a Round Table discussion at the 2018 congress in Vancouver, British Colombia.

 

CHANGES

NOTICE (JAN 27, 2020) Statement of Managing Editors, IOC World Bird List

As you are aware, our dear friend and respected colleague, Frank Gill, has announced that he will be stepping down as a Managing Editor of the IOC World Bird List as of February 1, 2020

Frank has been the heart, mind and soul of this project since its inception a quarter of a century ago. The inspiration, commitment and leadership that he provided to make the IOC World Bird List one of the most consulted and adopted taxonomic resources for the world’s avifauna cannot be overstated. His knowledge and leadership will be sorely missed.

But rest assured that we are committed as much as ever to continue this legacy. We consider it an honor and a great responsibility that Frank has entrusted this project to us. Frank will remain engaged as one of our most respected advisors. We intend to retain, and as opportunity and necessity arise, expand the team that Frank assembled and nurtured to create and maintain this project. We recognize that the IOC World Bird List has been successful largely due to our advisors, who provide it with a global perspective and a high level of expertise.

We also believe that the IOC list is especially valuable due to efficient, yet careful analysis of the content of new taxonomic works; timely semiannual updates; and responsiveness to the advice and queries of knowledgeable and interested correspondents. We will continue to follow those principles and others articulated on the website, and we expect a smooth transition.

We are similarly committed to working closely with the principals associated with the other major world bird lists to further reduce the differences between lists.

With deep thanks and admiration to our retiring colleague, here’s to the bright future of the IOC World Bird List. We are eager to assure its continued success.

As always we welcome constructive input.

Pamela C. Rasmussen and David B. Donsker

 

NOTICE (JAN 27, 2020) With very mixed feelings but a fulfilling 25 years, I will retire from the IOC World Bird List project effective February 1, 2020. Pamela Rasmussen and David Donsker will continue to manage IOC world bird taxonomy, guided by our advisors and a host of diligent volunteers.

This has been a community project from the beginning, with broad participation by hundreds of academic colleagues and scholarly world birders. I thank all of you for your many contributions, for your encouragement and for your patience.

Frank

 

NOTICE (DEC 2, 2019) We are pleased to announce that Pamela Rasmussen joined the IOC team as a Managing Editor, effective Dec 1, 2019. Pam brings to our team her global expertise in bird taxonomy as well as leadership on the systematics of the birds of South Asia. She is a member of the AOS Committee on Classification and Nomenclature, an Editor of Zootaxa and an avid world birder. Pam is on the faculty of Michigan State University where she founded AVoCet (Avian Vocalizations Center at MSU) and takes lucky undergraduates on world birding adventures. Welcome Pam!

The original IOC English names project

The nonscientific names of birds differ for the same species on different continents and vary annoyingly from list to list. On a world wide basis, different species may have the same name. Nearly twenty years ago, the leadership of the IOC saw the need for authoritative lists of  vernacular names. First came French names (Devillers and Ouellet 1993), then Spanish names (Bernis 1995). English names were especially challenging. They took more than fifteen years to negotiate and compile.

We believe that an improved system of standardized English names will foster success in ornithology and the conservation of birds worldwide. Names based on logical rules and consensus should aid clear and crisp communication among global stakeholders. The stakeholders include government officials, publishers, and philanthropists, many of whom are not comfortable with or literate in scientific names. Global birders also desire improved unity and greater simplicity of English names. So do conservation biologists and the editors of the books on birds. All such stakeholders need to communicate clearly without using hyphens in four different ways and without trying to reconcile the treatment of names in different authoritative works. We truly believe that the list of names recommended here has important strengths, and, if used widely, will promote consistency, authority and better conservation.

The project to recommend English names of every extant bird species in the world was set in motion at the 1990 meeting of the IOC, which appointed a committee of eminent ornithologists to consider the matter. The late Burt L. Monroe Jr. was named as chair of the committee, and he in turn named eleven well-known ornithologists as committee members.

Monroe created an initial list of all the species and subspecies of birds from the monumental Distribution and Taxonomy of Birds of the World authored by himself and Charles Sibley. The project had to have a starting point, and this was a natural one. Monroe and his committee engaged in extended preliminary discussions and debates. Their votes on a series of issues revealed a great deal of disagreement on how birds should be named and what the jurisdiction of the committee should be. The project thus proved to be more difficult and time-consuming than had been expected, and Monroe died before much had been accomplished. The project then went into abeyance.

It was revived in late 1994 by Frank Gill and Walter Bock. Speaking for the IOC, Bock invited Gill to take over the project, which he did early in 1995. Gill asked Minturn Wright, a lawyer by profession and world birder by avocation, to act as recording secretary and organizer of the process the project would follow. Bock named Gill and Wright to act as co-chairs of the committee. Gill then asked each person on Monroe ‘s committee to rejoin the project; most of them did. Gill expanded the committee by the addition of another twelve or thirteen eminent ornithologists, bringing the committee to twenty-eight ornithologists from fourteen countries (see Participants ) plus the co-chairs (Gill and Wright) for a total of thirty. The committee operated through six regional subcommittees, chaired as follows: Palearctic – Christopher Perrins; Nearctic – Stephen M. Russell; Africa – the late G. Stuart Keith and Peter G. Ryan; Neotropics – Robert S. Ridgely; Oriental Region – Nigel Redman; Australasia – Richard Schodde.