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An 81-year-old man from Montana has been sentenced to federal prison after he illegally used tissue and testicles from sheep in Kyrgyzstan to try and create a new species of massive sheep, all for the purposes of hunting in Montana. By far, the wildest aspect of this story is that *he did* succeed in creating a humongous hybrid sheep by cloning a giant Marco Polo sheep which he hunted back in 2013.
We first covered this story of the ‘massive hybrid sheep‘ in Montana back in March when the man was arrested. At the time, he was facing up to 10 years in federal prison after being charged with two violations of the Lacey Act (a bill passed in 1900 concerning the illegal trade of wildlife).
During the sentencing, U.S. District Court Judge Brian Morris told the room that he struggled to come up with an appropriate sentence for Arthur “Jack” Schubarth. On the one hand, the defendant is already 81 years old. On the other hand, Judge Morris wanted to impose a harsh sentence that would act as a deterrent from anyone else seeking to “change the genetic makeup of the creatures.”
Ultimately, Judge Morris sentenced the 81-year-old Schubarth from Vaughn, Montana to 6 months in federal prison for his crimes. He was also fined $20,000 and must make a $4,000 payment to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
The species of sheep that he cloned and created in Montana in hopes of loading up his private 215-acre Schubarth Ranch is the Marco Polo argali sheep which is the largest species of sheep on earth. These absolute units can weigh up to 425 pounds and stand 4 feet tall! And they are native to Western Mongolia, eastern Kazakhstan, and a remote portion of Russia.
In order to pull of this scheme, the defendant illegally imported parts of a Marco Polo argali sheep to the United States. They then used the genetic material from the tissue and testicle to clone an embryo which was then artificially inseminated sheep in Montana.
The process was successful and led to the birth of a massive hybrid sheep which was dubbed the “Montana Mountain King” aka “MMK” and raised on the 215-acre Schubarth Ranch. Having proof of concept, a plan was put into place to breed a new line of exotic super sheep for hunting on the ranch but that plan was foiled after the government caught wind of what was happening.
Montana Mountain King aka MMK is still alive. The huge hybrid sheep was taken into custody by Uncle Sam, according to NBC Montana, and he’s being held at “an accredited facility” for now but will be transferred to a zoo to live out his days.
According to reports, he sold hybrid sheep to people in “Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota and West Virginia.”
I recently read Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson which dives deep into the world of DNA editing using CRISPR and while these hybrid sheep aren’t the products of CRISPR, after reading that book I’m actually surprised that we haven’t seen more instances of rogue DNA editing to create hybrid/super species across planet earth yet.
That is very much a reality the world will come to grips with in the decades ahead unless the technology is reigned in but there have already been human babies born TEN YEARS AGO (in China) whose genetics were edited using CRISPR.