+- Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum (https://www.scivillage.com)
+-- Forum: Culture (https://www.scivillage.com/forum-49.html)
+--- Forum: Law & Ethics (https://www.scivillage.com/forum-105.html)
+--- Thread: Article Montana rancher jailed for cloning a giant sheep (laws violated, but still issues) (/thread-17138.html)
Montana rancher jailed for cloning a giant sheep (laws violated, but still issues) - C C - Jan 7, 2025
https://reason.com/2025/01/06/rancher-jailed-for-cloning-giant-sheep/
EXCERPTS: Montana rancher Arthur "Jack" Schubarth, 81, succeeded in cloning a wild Marco Polo argali sheep, the world's largest ovine species. That achievement cost him six months in jail.
The U.S. Department of Justice's sentencing memo asserts that the "Court can take a step towards averting the next ecological disaster and protect the public from wide-ranging negative consequences."
Did cloning a wild sheep really portend an ecological disaster or other wide-ranging negative consequences? Not at all.
Schubarth fell afoul of federal and state regulations that purport to protect rare wildlife from excessive exploitation. His son legally hunted argali sheep in 2013 in Kyrgyzstan, which issues a limited number of hunting permits annually. But his son neglected to fill out a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) wildlife import form that, among other things, forbids commercial use of lawfully hunted specimens.
[...] There is no denying that Schubarth violated various laws when he set out to clone argali sheep....
[...] The FWP justified its ban by asserting that argali sheep might transmit disease to wild and domestic sheep and/or escape to establish feral populations. Both fears are highly unlikely. First, a single sheep derived from a cloned embryo is probably not carrying exotic diseases. The Justice Department memo claims that disease concerns are "not exaggerated doomsday predictions." On what grounds? The memo notes that two sheep from Texas, later sold by Schubarth to a rancher in Nebraska, died of Johne's disease—a contagious bacterial infection with no known cure.
Johne's disease is serious, and the interstate movement of animals that test positive for it is properly prohibited. But MMK was not the source of Johne's disease, which is already endemic in Montana. It is not likely that the two afflicted sheep acquired the disease at the Schubarth ranch, since the initial infection usually occurs early in life but manifests years later.
Secondly, since MMK is a very expensive and closely monitored stud animal, it is preposterous to suggest that he could escape into the Rocky Mountains to frolic with local bighorn sheep. The U.S. attorney oddly asserted that "actions to create hybrid animals are as unnatural as they are illegal." Hybridizing argali sheep is not at all unnatural, since crossbreeding game sheep species is common in the industry...
[...] The feds confiscated MMK and killed his hybridized offspring at the Schubarth ranch. The feds will now likely go after the breeders in Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, and West Virginia to whom Schubarth sold argali sperm and hybrids... (MORE - missing details)