The scope note for E67 Birth currently reads "The birth of a human being." The scope of BIRTH could be usefully extended to included other life forms. Date of birth, place of birth, parentage are often recorded by zoological collections in "stud books", particularly for endangered species. Information on date, place and circumstances of birth ("hatch date" for birds) may also be a legal requirement for import and export of live specimens.
Similar information is recorded by botanical gardens for their specimes: date of planting, date of germination, etc. Software packages offer fields to record this sort of information, e.g. BG-BASE uses "sowing date" and "germination date(s)" as part of the "propogations" table.
Extending the scope of E67 will require modification of the properties. Parents are currently assumed to be instances of E21 PERSON :-
by mother (gave birth): Person
from father (was father for): Person.
It might therefore be preferable to create separate sub-classes for the beginning of existence of various types of biological entitites.
References :
"Guidelines for Data Entry and Maintenance of North American Regional Studbooks", Lincoln Park Zoo, 1996
URL http://www.aza.org/dept/csd/studguide.htm
URL Scott Swengel and Tori Kaldenberg : "North American Red-Crowned Crane Grus japonensis Studbook 2000", 2000
http://www.savingcranes.org/library/FixedSBfinalX.PDF
"DECREE of the Ministry of the Environment conditions for importing and exporting endangered species", Czech Republic, 1997 URL
http://www.env.cz/www/laws/cites2.nsf/a9f88a6e7295c630c125656e004d9786/…;
Michael Foster, Greg Kleine, and Jaroy Moore "Impact of Seeding Rate and Planting Date on Guayule Stand Establishment by Direct Seeding in West Texas"
URL http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/proceedings1993/v2-354.html
BG-BASE URL http://www.rbge.org.uk/BG-BASE/tables.htm
In the Monterey Meeting, 22/2/2002., in presence of Natural History experts, it was proposed:
The birth of living beings in general is sufficiently covered by the entity Begin of Existence.
The birth of living beings in general is sufficiently covered by the entity Begin of Existence (see issue 99).
Proposal accepted, Copenhagen 2/7/2002.