And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Indians' plea nets new name for squ*wfish
By Mark Obmascik
Denver Post Staff Writer
March 28
Sticks and stones may break bones. Now some scientists say names can
really hurt, too.
Heeding requests from American Indian tribes, an international panel of
biologists has officially changed the name of the Colorado squawfish to the
Colorado pikeminnow.
It's the first time a fish's name has been changed for political
reasons, biologists say. Tribes long have been offended by use of the "S''
word, which they say is a French corruption of an Algonquin term that became
an obscenity.
Though fish experts agreed that the five letters of squaw were akin to a
four-letter obscenity in English, few people are especially pleased with the
replacement name. There also is grumbling about the resulting - but still
unspecified - cost of changing government signs, brochures and posters to
reflect the new pikeminnow name.
Some wonder if the fish switch has put biologists in murky waters.
"I'm all for this change, but there are some people who think it's
caving in to pressure groups,'' said Joe Nelson, chairman of the Names of
Fishes Committee of the American Fisheries Society.
"There is talk about changing the name of the jewfish. Some said: Are we
going to change the name of the whitefish? And we do have a subtropical fish
named the slippery dick.''
The end of the Colorado fish's moniker marks the latest victory in an
Indian-led drive to scale back the use of "squaw.'' In 1995, Minnesota
approved a law ordering counties there to rename any natural geographic place
identified by the word.
One protesting Minnesota county responded by trying to rename Squaw
Creek to Politically Correct Creek. The state vetoed that switch.
"The use of the word is degrading to Indian woman. It's like calling
someone a whore,'' said George Lee, a Yakima tribal member in Washington
state who led the campaign to dump the fish's name.
A common offense
If the word is offensive, it's a common offense. According to the U.S.
Geological Survey, more than 900 places across the United States include the
word "squaw.'' Colorado has at least 26, including Squaw Pass on Colorado 103
northwest of Evergreen, three Squaw Mountains (in Clear Creek, Routt and
Teller counties), as well as eight different Squaw Creeks.
In Colorado, the Animal Formerly Known as Squawfish is principally known
as the federally protected endangered species that has blocked construction
of the Animas-La Plata water project south of Durango.
Once the dominant predator of the Colorado River system, the fish has
been decimated by decades of dam-building and even poisonings by
game-and-fish officials, who at one time tried to cut populations to make
room for sport species such as bass, catfish and pike.
The silvery fish, which grows to 6 feet and weighs up to 100 pounds, now
survives in a few silty desert streams, including downstream reaches of the
Colorado, Yampa, White, Green and San Juan rivers. It was added to the
federal list of endangered species in 1967.
Biologists say they aren't sure how the squawfish got its name. One
turn-of-the-century text said, "This fish is highly esteemed by the Indians,
hence its most popular name.'' Another interpretation holds that the name was
a mispronounciation of "squawkfish,'' because the fish squawks when taken out
of the water.
Regardless, the name offended some tribal groups. In the Pacific
Northwest, another species of the fish became so common - and so hungry for
the increasingly rare salmon - that government agencies placed a $3 per fish
bounty on it.
"Some of the fishermen would talk about hunting squaws. It got way out
of hand,'' said Keith Hatch, a fisheries official for the Siletz tribe of
Oregon.
So the six-member Names of Fishes Committee, staffed by some of North
America's leading fish scientists, gave the creature a new name.
"I grew up in British Columbia with the name squawfish. To me, it was
just a name,'' said Nelson of the Names of Fishes Committee. "But when we
found out just how offensive the name was - no Indian group stands up to say
they are squaws - we decided to change it.
"It's a fairly big deal to go about changing a common name, but we felt
this term was so derogatory that the change made sense.''
The harder part was deciding on a new name. Committee members said they
wanted to use an Indian name. But one tribe's word for the fish, qw'a'lh, was
tough to pronounce for even the Latin-schooled fish scientists, and another
tribal name, huhssei, also created problems.
"Can you imagine replacing squawfish with a name that sounds like hussy?
We'd really have a controversy on our hands,'' Nelson said.
The compromise name was pikeminnow, though committee members wrote in
the September 1998 issue of the scientific journal Fisheries that they
weren't completely happy with the result. "We do not regard the matter as
closed,'' they wrote.
Meanwhile, government agencies are preparing to replace the old name
with the new. To keep costs down, officials say they probably will wait until
old squawfish signs and brochures are used up before paying for new
pikeminnow literature.
"We knew this would cause us to have to change all our signs and
information and education materials, and we weren't looking forward to
that,'' said Pat Nelson of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "But the term
squaw has been considered offensive to Native Americans for quite a while,
and we don't want to offend people.''
Other names scrutinized
Now there's talk of changing the names of other fish, especially the
jewfish, a large saltwater grouper. Some scientists are ready to draw the
line, though, on one namechange candidate.
"Slippery dick is just such an old, widely used name,'' said Dick
Robins, former chairman of the Names of Fishes Committee. "What are you going
to do next - change the name of the Grand Tetons?''
Still, Robins is proud that "squawfish'' is no more.
"This was the right thing to do,'' Robins said. "I do wonder what the
bird people will do with a duck called the Old Squaw. But that's their deal.''
Copyright 1999 The Denver Post
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