Re: EIIF draft needs unified person

If that's the case, then why aren't we starting with a high-level  
'entity' that then can be classed as a person or an animal?

 From an EM perspective, domestic and farm animals often require  
significant support and management during a disaster. They have  
similar welfare needs to humans - shelter, food, water, medical  
attention via vets, association/ownership etc. As they have similar  
welfare needs, a similar approach may be applied by emergency managers  
to manage animal welfare needs as those managing human welfare needs.

Property on the other hand, does not share this level of similarity to  
people, in that information about property has more relevance to  
physical damage, economic loss etc. That says to me that animals are  
inherently different to property, even though they are at times  
treated as such. I think this is because they are a living entity  
rather than an inanimate object, and that they have biological needs  
similar to humans.

To me this suggests that animal's needs to be supported by the same  
root construct as people - particularly needs, medical and association  
for starters.

Cheers Gav



On 2008-12-04, at 1505, paola.dimaio@gmail.com wrote:

> Renato
>
> I was thinking about the pets too (I think everyone knows about your  
> cats)
>
> After Katrina, a service sprung up that was 'petfinder', and the  
> modelling question arose
> are pets people or things? Being neither, I think a separate  
> category was devised at the time. Our schema so far does not include  
> property, so if pets are considered personal property conceptually  
> they are not in there, however, if we consider pets like family,  
> then maybe they need to be represented too at some point , pets can  
> be patients too
> (perhaps when we have sorted out people model).
>
> pdm