Ovine Intervention

A district court judge in the USA has confessed himself in some doubt as to what sentence should be imposed upon an octogenarian rancher for the crime of creating unauthorised hunting sheep. The condemned pleaded guilty to having used tissue and testicles from a Pamir argali ram to cross-breed with a ewe and create a hybrid hitherto unknown upon Earth. Native to central Asia and first described to Europeans by Marco Polo, the Pamir argali is the biggest extant wild sheep species, and the miscreant's plan was to breed the hybrid for hunting in Minnesota and (where else?) Texas. In the end the judge overcame his discombobulation sufficiently to impose a sentence of six months in prison plus $24,000 in fines and payments, presumably on the grounds that there are more than enough oversized sheep in American blood-sports already.