How come almost every group of animals has it’s own designation? This seems very silly and arbitrary to me.
Really, why not just a heard, flock, school or just plain ol’ ‘bunch’ of everything? it would MUCH simpler.
And who’s job is it to think of these things?
I called thr NYPL to no avail, ditto on searches.
You find collective nouns silly and arbitrary? Not poetic, romantic, delightful or apt? Exultations of larks and parliaments of owls do nothing for you? 
When I’ve seen collective nouns listed the authority merely seems to be what’s traditional. Consequently there are few, if any, names for Australian animals (possible exception - a mob of kangaroos). People have suggested a ‘screech of cockatoos’ or a ‘gumboot of redbacks’ but they don’t seem to have entered the vernacular, alas 
Last but not least, it’s hardly gramatically incorrect for you to call everything a ‘bunch’ or ‘group’ if you wish; collective nouns are only kept alive as long as people use them.
From a newbie of Snafs
The absolutely earliest terms were terms of the hunt. They were the technical words (jargon) that is associated with any specialized activity. Since the people who engaged in “the hunt” were from the gentry, they began associating those terms with many other beasts and then began to apply them in poetic references to people.
If this sort of thing bothers you, go to the library and check out An Exaltation of Larks by James Lipton for more information. If this stuff intrigues you, buy the book.
These are called venereal terms, by the way, AKA terms of venery. Somehow from the Latin Venus, the goddess of love. Now, I can see why Venus might be associated, en revanche, with the goddess of love, but why not Diana for what began as jargon of the hunt? Perhaps it’s the chase the two, um, arts have in common.
(What are the chances that the James Lipton who wrote An Exaltation of Larks is the same creepy, reptilian, sycophantic invertebrate who hosts Bravo’s “Inside the Actors’ Studio”? The effete, aristophilic manner in which the book was written makes me think it very likely.)
From Kevin McGowan’s Crow FAQ:
These terms are pretty much not used. If I said I routinely see a murder three or four times a day, it would confuse most people.
It looks to me like a way of lending some charactor to the animals described and gives some colour to the English language.
If you want to say a bunch of frogs or a flock of geese no probs but trying to use to tools of communication bequeathed by your ancestors is not a bad thing either.
I don’t have a cite for this, but I believe that I read that all the “strange” collective names were made up ex nihilo by Parliament in the 1600s.
They even used “parliament” as a collective name. . .
For a group of owls, the wisest of animals.
Of course.
A few years ago, my friend, who owned a gigantic yellow stuffed duck, happened to have her birthday coincide with Easter Sunday. So, to commemorate, just about every day of Lent, leading up to her birthday, her mother would send her a new stuffed duck in the mail.
I was commissioned to help name some of the new brethen, and after a while, we wanted to know what a collective of ducks is called. We searched high and low, but couldn’t find a name. So, we made up a name, and it stuck:
A Noah of ducks.
(She’s got over a hundred different stuffed ducks now, btw, and all but a handful are yellow, and all are named.)
We were bored at work one day ( a strange idea, but it happens!) and I suggested an error of programmers and a tribulation of testers… they seemed quite popular. For some strange reason, the programmers think that the testers are the tribulation & vice versa.
Has anyone ever even seen a Parliament of owls??? The only owls I ever see are alone. Or at most, with their sole mate. That would make a pair.
Same with tigers. What is a group of tigers called? I think the only time you will see one, would be at the circus!! Other than that, they stick to themselves.
I think, Nenno, the word you are looking for is a bozo of tigers:)
Parliament is also the collective noun used for a group/band/bunch of Rooks. I had not heard it applied to owls before.
Not a Hobbes of tigers?
Snaf