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The Audubon Name: Members Speak

By Ilana DeBare

As part of considering whether to keep the “Audubon” part of our name, Golden Gate Bird Alliance (GGBA) conducted an online survey of our current members earlier this month. Of about 2000 dues-paying members, 354 responded—18 percent. That’s a very high turnout, considering that many surveys garner responses of only two or three percent. It’s a sign of how much GGBA members care about the organization and its future.

Results from the “Audubon” Name Change Preliminary Survey.

The results were:
221 (63 percent) in favor of removing the “Audubon” name.
89 (25 percent) against removing the “Audubon” name.
44 (12 percent) undecided about whether to remove the name.

The responses were uniformly thoughtful and heartfelt, regardless of which position they took. The GGBA Board of Directors is deeply appreciative of everyone who shared their views. The following is a sample of people’s comments, in proportion to the number of pro/con/undecided responses. (Each paragraph is from a different respondent.)

In Favor of Removing the Name

I don’t want to honor someone who enslaved and sold other human beings. I also want to respect the feelings of African Americans who have suffered from the legacy of slavery and act in solidarity with them.

As someone who is mixed race (African American and Caucasian), having one of my favorite organizations have loose ties to the imprisonment of my people has always made me feel icky. A small name change to remove the word Audubon would open up the doors to more minorities across San Francisco.

Emphasize the mission, not the man.

He was a product of his time, but there were people in his time who were anti-slavery, and he certainly wasn’t. Names are symbols. We need a racist-free name now… We can rebrand ourselves and still be a forceful presence for birds.

Aside from the character of Audubon, younger people have no idea what/who “Audubon” is. It’s opaque that Golden Gate Bird Alliance is a bird conservation organization.

Let’s keep naming free from individual personages, living or dead, righteous or not. For example, National Airport in DC was a perfectly good name and should have been kept in my view but instead was renamed for a political figure [Ronald Reagan] of dubious distinction.

Audubon was a man of his time—owning people and slaughtering birds were common. We need to move beyond those times. A name change might help us move past the stereotype of a group of white, wealthy, and older people.…

Hannah Breckel Takes on Birdathon!

By Ryan Nakano

On February 26, a new participant profile appeared on Golden Gate Bird Alliance’s fundraising platform Pledge It for this year’s Birdathon, and within a week, Hannah Breckel raised $600 to help protect our local birds and their habitat. Last week she surpassed her species goal of 50, seeing a total of 58 different bird species since March 11.

Seeing her profile at the top of the fundraiser leaderboard for the first week or so since the Birdathon fundraising campaign began, I started asking the rest of our staff if anyone knew her personally. It appeared she’d been on a few monthly field trips with us, but no one could place the name. Already, the prospect of sharing her story as a new individual fundraiser for Golden Gate Bird Alliance was exciting.

Hannah Breckel on an ecotour at Elkhorn Slough.

And then I learned Hannah Breckel is 11-years-old and her dream is to become the CEO of the National Audubon Society. Which tells us two things:

1. It is never too early or too late to lean into your passion and ask for support! (Now is the time to go and set up that fundraising page for yourself and catch up!)

2. We will be seeing and hearing the name Hannah Breckel now and in the future, especially in the world of bird conservation. This is just a fact.

On Breckel’s fundraising campaign page, she states “There’s nothing more exciting than identifying a new bird and, after moving around the U.S. my entire life, I’ve had the opportunity to see so much diversity among birds. I’m excited to help the Golden Gate Bird Alliance with this fundraiser.”

Born in Kodiak Alaska, Breckel was introduced to birding through a 4-H class at the age of eight years old. Twice a month a 4-H leader and a naturalist from the Alaska Raptor Center would lead birding trips for the 4-H class, and after that Hannah was hooked.

So hooked in fact, that she unintentionally got the rest of her family into birding as well.

“I don’t think I did it on purpose, but I would be so proud of myself for identifying a new bird and they (my family) would be like ‘wow!’, so they also started getting into it.”

As she became more and more proficient with identification, pouring over her beloved bird books, her family started going on bird walks together in Alaska with Hannah serving as their guide.…

Audubon — the man and the meaning

By Ilana DeBare

Who was John James Audubon? Why was the leading U.S. bird conservation organization named after him? Has his meaning as a figurehead changed?

The National Audubon Society board of directors announced this month that, after a year of deliberation, it will not replace the “Audubon” part of its name. But the name debate continues: NAS staff issued a sharp denunciation of the board’s decision, three NAS board members resigned in protest, and a number of chapters such as Seattle, Portland, and Madison are still moving ahead with plans to change their own names.

As the Golden Gate Bird Alliance board deliberates over our own response, it’s a good time to review what we know about John James Audubon—both the man and his meaning.

John James Audubon was a complex character who was known to make up stories about himself. Sometimes it’s hard to know what’s fact and what’s self-serving myth. In addition, the lens through which many of us look at Audubon and his personal history has shifted over the past decade.

Portrait of John James Audubon, 1826, by John Syme. White House collection.

The man

Let’s start with one of the most basic facts about someone—their birth. It’s undisputed that John James Audubon was born out of wedlock in 1785 to a French naval officer on the island that now is Haiti. But his mother? Most historians say she was a white French chambermaid who died shortly after childbirth, although a few sources claim she was an enslaved person of color. Audubon himself made up a third and entirely false story, claiming at one point that she was a “lady of Spanish extraction” from Louisiana who was killed in a slave uprising.

Some conservationists have promoted the theory of Audubon having Black ancestry as a way to welcome people of color into the birding community. More recently, the question of his ancestry has been overshadowed by his history as a slave owner and his statements in support of enslavement.

Audubon’s father raised him in France and sent him to Pennsylvania at age 18 to prevent his conscription into the Napoleonic wars. After marrying, he moved to Kentucky, which at the time was part of the country’s western frontier. He started a series of business ventures and failed at just as many. (At one point he went bankrupt and was jailed for debt.)

Audubon was an expert woodsman—good at shooting, orienteering, and swimming.…

Bay Birding Challenge Returns on April 1st

By Eric Schroeder

Cal versus Stanford… A’s versus Giants… and now East Bay Birders versus San Francisco Birders!

Yes, there’s a new tradition of regional rivalry in the Bay Area. On April 1st, birding teams representing S.F. (Stork Raven Mad) and the East Bay (East Bay Scrub Jays) will square off in the second annual Bay Birding Challenge to see who can find the most bird species in a day during Golden Gate Bird Alliance’s Birdathon fundraising season.

Last year San Francisco eked out a narrow victory, 146 species to 141, after 13 hours of birding that started at 6:14 a.m. This year the teams have new leaders—Derek Heins for the East Bay and Keith Maley for S.F.—and new strategies.

What will happen? Who will find the most birds? Which team will generate the most love (i.e. donations from supporters like you)? It’s anyone’s guess, but here’s our version of a tip sheet about the teams’ strategies and backgrounds.

Last Year

The 2022 Bay Birding Challenge was a study in contrasts. Team SF, led by Rachel Lawrence, ran like clockwork. In fact, the team designated roles for its members, including a timekeeper to get members back in their cars on schedule: the entire day was parsed into fifteen-minute segments. Team East Bay was more free-form. Led by Alex Henry, they planned their first stop—Mitchell Canyon on the backside of Mt. Diablo—hoping to cash in on spring migrants. (They did this, recording 46 species, including some hoped-for warblers, but it took three hours.) Beyond Mitchell Canyon, though, there was no plan. Strategy evolved as the day went on. But despite the vastly different styles, the race was close.

Team East Bay (East Bay Scrub Jays) 2023

Derek Heins, Team EB’s new leader, has a clear strategy for winning—”a very strict timeline.” (Does that sound like a page from the Team SF playbook?) Added to that, he plans to have a clearer template for the day, including “doing different forest areas early in the day.” Thus no trek out to Mt. Diablo but instead an early morning trip up Berkeley’s Vollmer Peak.

Derek Heins, the team captain of the East Bay Scrub Jays competing in the Bay Birding Challenge this year – photo provided by Derek Heins

As one of the co-compilers of GGBA’s Richmond Christmas Bird Count and the current Treasurer for GGBA’s Board of Directors, Derek has the organizational skills to implement a carefully planned schedule.…

From new birder to Birdathon maven

By Ilana DeBare

Caitlyn Schuchhardt had dropped out of grad school in English Literature and was looking for community when, in 2019, she discovered the Feminist Bird Club in Madison, Wisconsin.

Birding brought wonder and joy into her life, and she loved the people she met through it. Schuchhardt started volunteering with Madison Audubon’s nest watch program, got a part-time job on the chapter’s staff, and then found full-time work coordinating the annual Great Wisconsin Birdathon.

She became a Birdathon maven. (Or should we say raven?)

Caitlyn Schuchhardt birding – Photo provided by Caitlyn Schuchhardt

Like Golden Gate Bird Alliance’s Birdathon, which starts this month, the Great Wisconsin Birdathon is the main fundraiser for a local conservation group—in their case, the Natural Resources Foundation. Also like our Birdathon, the Wisconsin one encourages people to raise money from friends and family.

But the Wisconsin Birdathon was ahead of GGBA in one key way—under Schuchhardt’s leadership, they started using new software that allowed donors to make per-species pledges. The total raised by the Wisconsin Birdathon rose from about $90,000 in 2020 to $117,000 in 2022.

Schuchhardt credits a lot of that increase to the Pledge It software they purchased, which Golden Gate Bird Alliance is using for the first time this year.

The software allows you to choose a birding goal—say 30 species on a particular outing, or 100 species over a period of time—and have friends pledge a certain amount like 50 cents or $1 for each species found. At the end of Birdathon, the software automatically bills each donor’s credit card based on the number of species you found.

“Our old fundraising platform was a nightmare,” Schuchhardt said. “Registering was hard, donating was hard, and collecting pledges was almost impossible. Pledge It makes the pledging process an absolute breeze, a smooth experience from start to finish.”

Schuchhardt herself experienced a learning curve with fundraising. Like many people, she started out feeling shy and awkward about asking friends for money. In 2020, the first year that she took part in a Birdathon, she approached only her immediate family and raised about $150.

But she had an “a-ha!” moment when a non-birder friend heard about her Birdathon participation after the fact and said, “Why didn’t you share that with me? I would have donated!”

Orioles Fundraising Page Screen shot – Provided by Caitlyn Schuchhardt

Schuchhardt realized that “everyone has been touched by birds in some way.”…