The US Department of Justice announced that 81-year-old Arthur Schubart will be sentenced to six months in prison. An elderly American has been sued for illegally importing wild sheep DNA material into the country from Kyrgyzstan. This was reported by portal Phys.org, with reference to the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency.
According to the lawsuit, Schubart illegally imported parts of argali, the world’s largest sheep breed, from the Central Asian republic to create cloned embryos.
The resulting embryos were then transplanted into domestic sheep at the man’s farm in Montana. As a result, an argali named Marco Polo was born.
Schubart used the male’s sperm to fertilize various breeds of sheep to breed new large ram hybrids. The retiree planned to sell the animals to farms that organize trophy hunting.
“Schubart’s greed led him to conspire to bring some of the world’s largest sheep from Kyrgyzstan to Montana. Such actions to create hybrid animals are not only illegal but also unnatural,” said prosecutor Jessie Laslovich.
In addition to the prison sentence, Schubart was fined $20,000 and ordered to pay another $4,000 to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
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