At San Francisco's Golden Gate Park Stables since 1972 Sammy (1959 -) patiently taught thousands of kids to ride, groom and muck up after him. Gentle with kids, he never tossed or rubbed anyone off. He walked, trotted and cantered around the ring. He stood patiently as new riders fumbled with brushes, curry combs and hoof picks. He bloated his belly as the saddle came out and obliged when clumsy hands pushed a cold snaffle bit into his mouth. He stood as riders pulled themselves up into the English saddle, kicking his belly and pulling on his mouth often at the same time. Retired from teaching, Sammy, accompanied by equine wife Cadbury, soaks up sun and attention from fans sharing Sammy lore. He's so handsome and smart. What a smooth trot and canter, how he loves kids. Clip-clopping along pavement he's slow but steady. He turns like a wide load but does faster straightaway. No one knows Sammy's parents or birthplace. Part quarter horse, he spent his early years ranching. Doing no fancy moves, he's a steady, reliable blue-collar horse. His favorite caper was to escape the corral and lead other horses to the park for fast romps pursued by frantic stable hands. Sammy isn't sway backed. His once-black nose is dusted white. Fed hay at 5 a m, noon and 5 p m along with rice bran and rolled barley mixed with sugar beets soaked overnight, his eyes are sharp from carrots he chomps with his own teeth.
A life on earth phone book revolutionizes biology, influencing international environmental policy. Its a worldwide electronic information network Global Biodiversity Information Facility Internet database pooling widely scattered data on Earth's species. Sponsored by Paris-based Research Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development it encompasses the 29 most industrialized nations. Molecular biology and gene sequencing started with today's electronic systems. Natural history began centuries ago and stayed behind. No single place records scientific names of all species. To know all the specimens of a particular bird you write to all the museums that may have a specimen, then go to the museums and look at labels and cards. The network helps biology students, researchers and nations rich in species but with small or no collections of their own. While most species occur in developing countries almost all significant collections are in Europe and North America.
Information scattered in museums, universities, journals, drawers and card files, together available to everybody, the global network will include domestic biodiversity of participating countries and data on stored material collected worldwide. The database must adapt for greater understanding of life and redefined categories. Countries including Australia, Britain, Canada and the U S already offer online information on their main domestic species. Even in these countries biodiversity inventories are incomplete. Many historical collections, like those in Britain, France, Germany and Russia, often dating to the 1700s, are not entered in computer records. British Natural History Museum, owning one of the world's largest collections, has only a few of its millions of specimens in computer catalogs. It's $5 per specimen to digitize it. The network won't compile or organize its own species inventories but will pull together national and local databases in countries interested in digitizing their collections.
Weaving together existing records is complex. Existing, diverse databases aren't based on common methods. They need a road map with compatible systems, like a world phone book with the same codes, matching collections seamlessly. Different countries and cultures use different methods to classify, name or define species. Many species have duplicate names. Computerizing them requires weeding out ambiguity, entering named species and their synonyms. This is of value to scientists and policymakers. Preparing a new law, say to protect a species, must have no ambiguity. Databases jointly making up the global center will remain the property of institutions that own and provide the data and link them to the Internet rather than start a central database from scratch.
Several countries bid for the seat, offering accommodations. Specialists with an initial $3 million budget set up a secretariat and work program moving biodiversity information from cuneiform to computer. The budget expects to grow, provided by member countries. During preparatory meetings several countries did not want the new center to compete with other international programs compiling biological information, including the Clearing-House Mechanism for recording species, created in 1992 as part of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. Critics say the mechanism, tailored to the least advanced countries, was intended as little more than an archive and is slow to start. An understanding was reached that this new facility will concentrate on digitizing information.
The Clearing-House Mechanism answers basic questions on world species. Are species evolving? Lost? What exists today? Center membership will be open-ended. After richer countries provide data and infrastructure poorer countries can join at lower fees. This provides access to computers with a large online reference including images and details of their domestic specimens, now housed in rich nations' museums, libraries and zoos. Economic planners and industry, including pharmaceutical companies doing biological prospecting, also may find the data useful. Most challenging is the next stage, vertical links, when the project will try to link species databases with others dealing with soil, climate, human population, etc. Want to know the effect of a pesticide on a species? You'll see what climate the species lives in, what else is in the ecosystem and how the chemicals affect it. Vertical links will be worthwhile but difficult. The project's first phase will take years to go online. The broader project should grow and evolve indefinitely. Even embryonic it will make a difference. Initial focus is to get data from tags and drawers into computers and include images.