Sentenced to 6 months in prison for trying to clone a sheep

An 81-year-old man from Montana, in the USA, was sentenced to six months in federal prison for illegally using tissue and testicles from a large sheep with the aim of cloning it and creating hybrid sheep intended for trophy sport hunting in Texas and Minnesota. U.S. District Court Judge Brian Morris said he had serious difficulty preparing the sentence for Arthur “Jack” Schubarth of Vaughn, Montana, the man in question. He said he weighed Schubarth’s age and lack of criminal record against the need for a sentence that would discourage anyone else from trying to “change the genetic makeup of creatures” on Earth. Morris also fined Schubarth $20,000 and ordered him to make a $4,000 payment to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

Schubarth will be allowed to self-report to a Bureau of Prisons medical facility. “I’m going to have to work for the rest of my life to make up for everything I’ve done,” Schubarth told the judge shortly before sentencing. His lawyer, Jason Holden, said that the cloning of the giant sheep of the Marco Polo subspecies hunted in Kyrgyzstan in 2013 he ruined his client’s “life, reputation and family.”

“I think this destroyed him,” said Holden, who, in requesting a suspended sentence, argued that Schubarth was a hard-working man who always cared for animals and did something no one else could do. , giving birth to the giant cloned sheep he named Montana Mountain King or MMK. The animal was confiscated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services and will be held at an accredited facility until it can be transferred to a zoo, said Richard Bare, wildlife service special agent.