The Cape Bird Club

Gullery of Gulls by Tony Williams.

A Khoisan Gull at the Lamberts Bay - Cape??? Gannet colony December 2005.

Promerops No 265 (February 2006)

Seen any Benguelan or Khoisan Gulls lately?

Changing common names irrates most people, but some of the names are too bad to retain. I particularly dislike the use of the names of long-dead taxonomists who in many cases never even saw a live bird in the species named after them. For example, Hartlaub and Sabine whose work is adequately commemorated in the scientific names of two locally occurring gulls. I also dislike long descriptive names like Yellow - footed and Lesser Black - backed. I like names which are short and associate birds with their particular breeding area or ecology.

Thus I suggest Tundra Gull to replace Sabines and Benguelan Gull to replace Hartlaubs. The gulls we have been calling Hartlaub have a range closely tied to the distribution of the kelp Ecklonia and the maggots of kelp flies which feed on washed up kelp. I considered Ecklonia Gull but felt it wouldnt be understood by enough people. However, the name Benguelan Gull reflects the global restriction of this gull to the southern Benguela marine ecosystem.

A trickier situation occurs with Larus dominicanus which used to be Soutern Blackbacked Gull and is now Kelp Gull. The version we have in southern Africa is definitely distinct from the Kelp Gulls that range between South America and New Zealand. Whether our birds are distinct species or just a race of the wide spread Kelp Gull is still under discussio. A Dutch birder - who probably has never seen one of our gulls - has already used the term Cape Gull. Given the many Capes in the world (check any atlas) this is not a helpful name. Formerly during the early days of zoological exploration, many species identified from specimens shipped via Cape Town to Europe were called Cape this or that. This was reasonable for species that bred in the southwestern Cape - hence our current Cape Cormorants, Gannets, Bulbuls, Buntings, etc. The name was less appropriate for species which bred nowhere near Cape Town. Thus we have or had, Cape Buffalo, Cape Hen (Whitechinned Petrel) and Cape Pigeon (Pintado Petrel).

Anyway why should the new name be given by a Dutch birder? Did he consult anybody in southern Africa? Given our current knowledge of the birds biology is the name really appropriate? Cant we do better? I would like to suggest the name Khoisan Gull for our local taxon vetula . the current breeding range of vetula is from central Namibia to the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. There is no regional name for this tract of coast. However, the range agrees with the costal distribution of the Khoisan people at the time of the first written descriptions of southern Africa and thus has an appropriate regional identity.

"New lamps for old" led to problems for Aladdin. I suspect "new names for old" gulls will be debated as to what are appropriate names for gulls. Vincent Ward and I have already used the names Khoisan and Benguelan in several scientific papers we have submitted to international journals. We have set the ball rolling. Will it remain in our court? We doubt it but would like to hear other opinions. Debate is healthy. Lets have some local consensus on what we call our gulls.

(This note is based on a fuller account "Is that a Kelp, Cape or Khoisan Gull?" which appeared in Bird Numbers 12: 21 - 23).