US Man Cloned Marco Polo Sheep- Gets Charged

alsaqr

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An 81-year-old man from Montana faces sentencing in federal court on Monday for illegally using tissue and testicles from large sheep hunted in Central Asia and the U.S. to illegally create hybrid sheep for captive trophy hunting in Texas and Minnesota.
 
Cloning sheep is illegal?
The sheep he cloned was a Marco Polo ram from Kyrgistan (sp?) north of Afghanistan. Different sheep breeds can breed with other sheep of a different subspecies. The idea was to create large (300 lb.) rams with those beautiful spiraling horns.
CITIES is an international agreement not to tamper with existing species which they deem are in peril. It was also a violation of the US Lacey act that doesn't allow crossing state lines for illegal acts concerning wildlife.
1) He imported pieces of a Marco Polo sheep to Montana wherein he also had an illegal product (CITIES) cross international borders and state (Lacey) borders.
2) He then tampered with the genetics of a threatened species with the intention of crossing it with domestic sheep which could possibly introduce new diseases to both domestic and indigenous wild sheep.

There are penalties involved with these acts.
 
What Patocazador said; I have no sympathy for the Montana guy. There's a long history of good intentions leading to terrible results. Kudzu, nutria, burros and aoudad in my part of the world. As much as I like hunting and eating Axis, there are some early thoughts that they're altering the behaviour of the native WT in the Texas hill country. Is it good or bad or even true? Who knows.
 
There is a fine line out in the real world when it comes to endangered or threatened animals. In many respects it is not only reasonable but maybe should be encouraged to have, well let's call it mass production for lack of better terms, by people of these types of animals. We all know most animals end up in precarious situations due to habitat loss and either low value or negative value to local people. More than likely the situation on the ground will not substantially improve such that the animals suddenly flourish. Captive breeding programs can build up the species as a whole and be self sustaining by generating revenue by using excess animals. Seems like a win-win, though rights group very much disagree. They would rather a tiny pocket of wild animals are watched and worried over incessantly as it dwindles into oblivion than have huge domesticated herds which are commercially viable.
 
Sheep gene invasion, by 1 person. Hopefully its for the children...
 
Me too when our leaders fund gain of function research in China (so normal oversight measures are useless) then create a world wide pandemic out of their efforts.

At least no one in the US is playing with genetics...

Must be the ear tag that made this rack so big.

rack1.jpg rack.jpg

I suppose one really just needs to get the .gov to fund the project before they start. Seems to be the best way to get the approval of those that enforce the rules they make or not.
 
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I have less than zero interest in going to a high fenced game ranch and shooting a designer critter. Lots of people do it and it’s big business. It amazes me what you can buy in the exotic hunting industry, including rare and otherwise extinct species and these designer Frankencritters.

This is not the first crossbred designer sheep that’s been developed for game farms. If the Marco Polo was legally taken and imported on a Cites permit I completely fail to see how it in any way harms Marco Polo sheep.

I understand the CITES process and the Lacey act. This circumstance just seems fairly harmless.
 
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IMHO, this smells like BS to me and the gov't has bigger fish to fry. I have to agree that it seems it 's fine for them to create a global pandemic by playing God with viruses but we can't breed exotic sheep to shoot and hang on the wall? What it reminds me of is the idiots who protested the breeding of scimitar horned oryx in Texas, effectively saving them from extinction. Some lunatic animal rights activists wanted them destroyed, even though they're effectively extinct in the wild.
 
I have less than zero interest in going to a high fenced game ranch and shooting a designer critter.

Yeah but if we could clone, and had access to the DNA, we could make you any animal you wanted to shoot. ;)

I suppose that completely takes the sport out of it. Never have met anyone that mounted a deer they hit with their truck.

I bet someone has though..,

I'd like to go to where that big rack above is, just to watch him. I've been thinking about getting some of these just for something different to look at around the place.

 
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Been following this story for a while . It's hard to see how this invokes the CITES or LACEY acts . I have to wonder , if he had raised them on a ranch in west Texas , would this even be a thing ? It doesn't appear that any actual wildlife was harmed in any way .
 
Been following this story for a while . It's hard to see how this invokes the CITES or LACEY acts . I have to wonder , if he had raised them on a ranch in west Texas , would this even be a thing ? It doesn't appear that any actual wildlife was harmed in any way .

Yeah but they made a really unique bust. They busted someone trying to make game, not take game.
 
I don't see this in any form as a way of conserving a species. It's all about creating a "super Species" either larger in body or larger in horn that could possibly create a new disease that would wipe out the pure native species. This is all about greed and the possibility of naming the "new" species after one's self. Years ago, folks started to raise, breed and hybridize bass and Bluegills in an attempt to break ages old world records. Same goes for the new "deer farms". As has been witnessed by many of us, no new legitimate world records have come from this....but CWD is now almost everywhere. Used to be it was skill or incredible luck that led to a new record or even "making the book". Now, it's just how deep your pockets are as to how high in the book you want to go. No skill required. This is similar to the "Jurassic Park" movies, where species are brought back from extinction, so folks with more money that hunting skill, can be taken out safely to shoot, in order, to somehow increase their manliness. I imagine Saber Tooth Tigers, Ground Sloths and Mammoths and Mastodons are next.
 
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I don't see this in any form as a way of conserving a species. It's all about creating a "super Species" either larger in body or larger in horn that could possibly create a new disease that would wipe out the pure native species. is all about greed and the possibility of naming the "new" species after one's self.

The folks the .gov does not go after spin it differently.


Assisted reproductive technologies enable researchers to improve animal fertility more effectively, increase the number of offspring from genetically elite animals, facilitate genomic preservation and manipulation. We have established platforms for artificial insemination, embryo transfer, in vitrofertilization, embryo cryopreservation, sex sorting, cloning, stem cell technology, embryo genomics to assist in animal reproduction research and development.
 
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