US man, 81, sentenced to six months for creating giant hybrid sheep for hunting

58 pointsposted 9 months ago
by wwarner
(theguardian.com)

35 Comments

AStonesThrow

9 months ago

He literally succeeded in performing a literal cloning of a complex mammalian subject? How rich is this guy, how well-staffed his lab, how is he achieving things that state-level labs struggle to do?

I am unsure whether I believe that this was an actual cloning, and not just some sort of old-fashioned hybridization or something. Because this guy should be awarded a science medal instead. What really is the legal issue with creating your own mammals just to be held captive and hunted for food?

It seems weird, but unsurprising, they'd throw the book at him, and make an example of him, lest someone else strike out on their own with such a complex biomedical challenge!

mystified5016

9 months ago

Cloning animals isn't actually that hard. We did it in the 90's with Dolly IIRC. There just isn't a whole lot of practical use for it apart from human cloning, which is illegal.

It's pretty straightforward: you take an egg cell, suck out its genome and replace it with a new one. Then you implant that egg in a host and it is gestated and born in the usual way. The tricky part back then was extracting the from adult cell samples, but modern genomics is way past that. It's pretty much the same process as creating a new bacterium, which is done quite commonly as I understand.

wutwutwat

9 months ago

Ah yes, that sure does sound like it isn’t that hard.

AStonesThrow

9 months ago

> Ah yes, that sure does sound like it isn’t that hard.

Totally easy. In fact, I usually do it by accident 2-3 times a week, while fixing breakfast. Please don't inform the FBI.

xeonmc

9 months ago

and this was how Randy started covid

Salgat

9 months ago

He paid a lab, he just supplied the tissue.

agamemnomnomnom

9 months ago

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/13/montana-ranc...

Better explaination of actual charges.

Salgat

9 months ago

So he gave wild goat tissue from Kyrgyzstan to a lab to clone it, then had it breed with local ewes to produce a hybrid to sell. That's certainly one sneaky way to get around animal importing inspections.

mfld

9 months ago

Yes, better article, which also includes a picture of the "Montana Mountain King".

Would this cross-breeding be legal if conducted on a remote island with limited dangers of the introduced species to wildlife?

illwrks

9 months ago

It states “his illegal breeding operation was widespread, involved other states and endangered the health of other wildlife”… I bet the cloning/hybrid animal is only the headline piece and there is way more to the story than is let on. Perhaps a ‘Tiger King’ of sorts?..

leobg

9 months ago

Makes me want to clone sheep and cows and chickens and release them in Montana… just in protest for sending an old man who admits his guilt and pays the price to prison.

lovich

9 months ago

Did he pay his price? If he fucked up the eco system the 5 figure sum the article is quoting at the time I am reading this, doesn’t seem like he covered his externalities

Ancalagon

9 months ago

This is kind of legendary. Although I understand the dangers presented by letting non sterilized new species out into the wild.

scohesc

9 months ago

It's a bit difficult to figure out what specifically the guy was being arrested for and I had to re-read the article 2-3 times.

Looks like the main charges are due to violating the Lacey Act multiple times - shipping the hybrid sheep domestically while labelling them as "pure" sheep, while also conspiring to import embryos/sperm of the Marco Polo Goat (central asian) goat, also illegal without permits/procedures.

If the guy was younger, I'd assume he'd be getting at least football numbers in prison given how long the business was running, etc.

bdjsiqoocwk

9 months ago

I thought that the person's age was often taken into account? I think it's silly to put someone 6mos in jail for creating a hybrid, but it's even worse when we're talking about a 81yo.

Someone

9 months ago

FTA: The US district court judge Brian Morris said […] he weighed Schubarth’s age and lack of a criminal record with a sentence that would deter anyone else from trying to “change the genetic makeup of the creatures” on the Earth

garrettgarcia

9 months ago

Wow. Wait until he hears about dogs, cats, chickens, bees, sheep, ligers, corn, potatoes, strawberries, etc. etc. etc.

I really hope this guy wins his appeal, or at least gets his sentence commuted. What a farce.

pjfin123

9 months ago

> The US district court judge Brian Morris said […] deter anyone else from trying to “change the genetic makeup of the creatures”.

Why does this judge feel entitled to be the arbiter of the genetic makeup of creatures on Earth?

> They are protected under international convention as a threatened species and outlawed for import into Montana to protect native sheep from disease and hybridization.

These are reasonable concerns, you generally shouldn't move plants or animals across international (or U.S. state) boundaries, but the if the species is threatened then wouldn't people breeding more of them be a good thing? This seems like a weird case where I think it's illegal under the Lacey Act because they're endangered but by importing them he's making them less endangered.

This article seems outraged about this calling it an "audacious scheme" (as opposed to a technicality) while Humans have been breeding sheep for size and other characteristics for thousands of years.

cut3

9 months ago

Yeah this article's written so it sounds like the cloning process is the problem but a sentence in the article mentions the big issue is likely illegally obtaining the animal DNA from another country. Hes a cum smuggler it would appear.

know-how

9 months ago

Meanwhile we got an experimental "vaccine" that doesn't cure or prevent disease, but does cause weird cancers, blood clots, and other effects.

vfclists

9 months ago

So long as a person is clear in their mind there is no such thing as age being a factor in their sentencing.

bdjsiqoocwk

9 months ago

Literally in the article

> The US district court judge Brian Morris said […] he weighed Schubarth’s age

chromatin

9 months ago

Shouldn't be a crime IMO. Hope he wins on appeal.

bdjsiqoocwk

9 months ago

Very light on technical details.

willcipriano

9 months ago

And evidence for the supposed damages.

riffic

9 months ago

wait this is a crime?

rcxdude

9 months ago

He was effectively bypassing restrictions on importing wildlife from abroad, which is understandably heavily-regulated given the problems invasive species cause.

ungamedplayer

9 months ago

Unless it's done by mega corporations with multiple shields of lawyers, it's illegal.

rurban

9 months ago

Land of the free, lol.

shswkna

9 months ago

To the prosecutor: please just get a chill pill, for gods sake.

blackeyeblitzar

9 months ago

I don’t understand what makes this dangerous or criminal, when private enterprises seem to be able to do whatever they want when they create genetically modified organisms and pair it with pesticides with unknown environmental impacts that are sprayed across big portions of the country.