[HN Gopher] US man, 81, sentenced to six months for creating gia...
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US man, 81, sentenced to six months for creating giant hybrid sheep
for hunting
Author : wwarner
Score : 26 points
Date : 2024-10-01 18:10 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| gnabgib wrote:
| Related _Montana Man Pleads to Federal Charges for Efforts to
| Create Giant Hybrid Sheep_ (26 points, 7 months ago, 76 comments)
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39693368
| bdjsiqoocwk wrote:
| I thought that the person's age was often taken into account? I
| think it's silly to put someone 6mos in jail for creating a
| hybrid, but it's even worse when we're talking about a 81yo.
| vfclists wrote:
| So long as a person is clear in their mind there is no such
| thing as age being a factor in their sentencing.
| bdjsiqoocwk wrote:
| Literally in the article
|
| > The US district court judge Brian Morris said [...] he
| weighed Schubarth's age
| Someone wrote:
| FTA: The US district court judge Brian Morris said [...] he
| weighed Schubarth's age and lack of a criminal record with a
| sentence that would deter anyone else from trying to "change
| the genetic makeup of the creatures" on the Earth
| garrettgarcia wrote:
| Wow. Wait until he hears about dogs, cats, chickens, bees,
| sheep, ligers, corn, potatoes, strawberries, etc. etc. etc.
|
| I really hope this guy wins his appeal, or at least gets his
| sentence commuted. What a farce.
| cut3 wrote:
| Yeah this article's written so it sounds like the cloning
| process is the problem but a sentence in the article
| mentions the big issue is likely illegally obtaining the
| animal DNA from another country. Hes a cum smuggler it
| would appear.
| greenish_shore1 wrote:
| >cum smuggler
|
| Lol
| pjfin123 wrote:
| > The US district court judge Brian Morris said [...] deter
| anyone else from trying to "change the genetic makeup of
| the creatures".
|
| Why does this judge feel entitled to be the arbiter of the
| genetic makeup of creatures on Earth?
|
| > They are protected under international convention as a
| threatened species and outlawed for import into Montana to
| protect native sheep from disease and hybridization.
|
| These are reasonable concerns, you generally shouldn't move
| plants or animals across international (or U.S. state)
| boundaries, but the if the species is threatened then
| wouldn't people breeding more of them be a good thing? This
| seems like a weird case where I think it's illegal under
| the Lacey Act because they're endangered but by importing
| them he's making them less endangered.
|
| This article seems outraged about this calling it an
| "audacious scheme" (as opposed to a technicality) while
| Humans have been breeding sheep for size and other
| characteristics for thousands of years.
| _3u10 wrote:
| Milei in Argentina has cloned dogs. There are places where its
| totally legal.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_(Javier_Milei%27s_dog)
| bdjsiqoocwk wrote:
| Very light on technical details.
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| He literally succeeded in performing a literal cloning of a
| complex mammalian subject? How rich is this guy, how well-staffed
| his lab, how is he achieving things that state-level labs
| struggle to do?
|
| I am unsure whether I believe that this was an actual cloning,
| and not just some sort of old-fashioned hybridization or
| something. Because this guy should be awarded a science medal
| instead. What really is the legal issue with creating your own
| mammals just to be held captive and hunted for food?
|
| It seems weird, but unsurprising, they'd throw the book at him,
| and make an example of him, lest someone else strike out on their
| own with such a complex biomedical challenge!
| Salgat wrote:
| He paid a lab, he just supplied the tissue.
| mystified5016 wrote:
| Cloning animals isn't actually that hard. We did it in the 90's
| with Dolly IIRC. There just isn't a whole lot of practical use
| for it apart from human cloning, which is illegal.
|
| It's pretty straightforward: you take an egg cell, suck out its
| genome and replace it with a new one. Then you implant that egg
| in a host and it is gestated and born in the usual way. The
| tricky part back then was extracting the from adult cell
| samples, but modern genomics is _way_ past that. It 's pretty
| much the same process as creating a new bacterium, which is
| done quite commonly as I understand.
| leobg wrote:
| Makes me want to clone sheep and cows and chickens and release
| them in Montana... just in protest for sending an old man who
| admits his guilt and pays the price to prison.
| illwrks wrote:
| It states "his illegal breeding operation was widespread,
| involved other states and endangered the health of other
| wildlife"... I bet the cloning/hybrid animal is only the headline
| piece and there is way more to the story than is let on. Perhaps
| a 'Tiger King' of sorts?..
| Ancalagon wrote:
| This is kind of legendary. Although I understand the dangers
| presented by letting non sterilized new species out into the
| wild.
| scohesc wrote:
| It's a bit difficult to figure out what specifically the guy was
| being arrested for and I had to re-read the article 2-3 times.
|
| Looks like the main charges are due to violating the Lacey Act
| multiple times - shipping the hybrid sheep domestically while
| labelling them as "pure" sheep, while also conspiring to import
| embryos/sperm of the Marco Polo Goat (central asian) goat, also
| illegal without permits/procedures.
|
| If the guy was younger, I'd assume he'd be getting at least
| football numbers in prison given how long the business was
| running, etc.
| agamemnomnomnom wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/13/montana-ranc...
|
| Better explaination of actual charges.
| Salgat wrote:
| So he gave wild goat tissue from Kyrgyzstan to a lab to clone
| it, then had it breed with local ewes to produce a hybrid to
| sell. That's certainly one sneaky way to get around animal
| importing inspections.
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