Posted on 09/30/2024 8:04:21 PM PDT by Red Badger
A Montana man found guilty of illegally cloning sheep is due to be sentenced today in a first-of-its-kind case.
Arthur 'Jack' Schubarth of Vaughn, 81 , used sperm imported from Kyrgyzstan to create a gigantic Marco Polo sheep he called the Montana Mountain King.
The decade-long attempt to clone and create hybrids from the hulking sheep, which can weigh 300lb and have curled horns up to five feet long, aimed to provide sheep to be used for trophy hunts in Texas and Minnesota.
Schubarth's attorney described his client's efforts as being like 'Jurassic Park' and told the court that cloning the enormous sheep has 'ruined his client's life'.
Schubarth - who has been in the trophy hunting business since 1987 - successfully cloned a Marco Polo argali sheep using remnants he bought from a hunter who had killed a sheep in Kyrgyzstan in 2019.
Schubart got a laboratory to create cloned embryos from Marco Polo argali sheep sperm.
After implanting the embryos in a ewe, a pure Marco Polo argali sheep was born, which Schubert named 'Montana Mountain King'- and which was used to artificially impregnate other ewes.
Montana Mountain King has now been confiscated by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services.
Prosecutors are not seeking prison time for Schubarth - the maximum punishment is five years in prison, or a fine up to $250,000 or twice the defendant's financial gain.
His attorney said in the sentencing memo, 'Jack did something no one else could, or has ever done.
'On a ranch, in a barn in Montana, he created Montana Mountain King. MMK is an extraordinary animal, born of science, and from a man who, if he could rewrite history, would have left the challenge of cloning a Marco Polo only to the imagination of Michael Crichton ...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
It was illegal to import Charolais cattle. Ranchers got around it by importing Charolais semen and back-hreed8ng with legal cattie until they had virtually pure Charolais.
I figured out the headline:
The ‘unthinkable’ was using TexasGator as the medium.
You know what they say about Texas...
Those sheep could never reproduce.
Nobody’s accusing Rob Waugh of having a brain.
And I don’t see any crime here.
Not baaad! I only have eyes for ewe
Spot on
Perhaps because he was doing what he was doing without advanced degree, impressive laboratory and millions in government funding.
I was going to clone an extremely rare emotionally stable woman. I was going to create a unicorn on the hot crazy mix, for the betterment of all mankind.
But it looks like there are laws against that sort of thing. I guess it’s back to Robotics.
Use Julie Newmar as the model for your prototype............
Use Julie Newmar....excellent idea.
So?
It is illegal................
Why is this a problem?
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I don’t get it either. It’s seems like breeding (husbandry) to develop hybrids and purebreds has been going on in the animal and plant world for decades. This is animal science and what I think is there must be those who are jealous over his achievement. It’s like the guy who invents a new device and before he can patent it some big corporation comes along and steels it from him. I can’t think of a reason why a sheep in one part of the world can’t exist in Montana. It looks like a better, more handsome mountain goat to me. Geez, it’s not like the animal is some weird aberration or monster.
Odd definition of cloning. AI is not cloning.
Darn, I guess he should have just let them die out rather than that.
I was expecting a hunter biden story.
I’m confused...
Mutilate children with or without parental consent...A-okay.
Clone giant sheep..go to jail.
reminds me of the joke about why Scotsmen wear kilts Sheep have learned about the sound of zippers.
Am I the only one who read this whose mind went in a completely different direction involving foreign men?
Hahahahaha...I knew a guy when I was in the Navy named “Barney” who said he grew up on a farm, and that he wore large boots so the hind hooves of the sheep could fit into them.
When I looked at him, puzzled, he said “I would walk them to the water. Sheep don’t like water.”
To this day, I could never figure out if he was just pulling the chain of an innocent new guy, or...
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