Back in 2001, when I neared the end of a tour teaching political science at the Air Force Academy, I found what looked like an interesting next assignment as a military advisor to an ambassador at the State Department in Washington, D.C.

After the Soviet Union broke up (and before a certain dictator loved by a certain former U.S. president took over and tried to reunite the various former Soviet states), the efforts to provide aid and assistance in the region were quite haphazard. As a result, a very good fellow, whom you may well have seen on TV helping to debunk a lot of Ukrainian falsehoods, took over as the ambassador in charge of all assistance to the former Soviet Union.

He had a roughly $2 billion checkbook, and any agency that wanted to work in the former Soviet states had to get his sign off. The idea was largely to keep former Soviet nuclear scientists employed at one of two (Moscow and Kyiv) new nuclear research facilities, so they wouldn’t go to work for, say, China or North Korea. A good idea. He had a staff of about 15 and we had our various assignments. Proposals came to our desk many times a day, and we had to figure out if the proposed funding made sense in the big picture. I did a lot of the work on proposed military aid (from mine detectors to flashlights to bicycles) to the militaries of the now-independent nations.

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For a lot of reasons, that assignment ended up being a pretty terrible place to work. My primary problem was that, unlike the military, people who worked there really cared about who got credit for ideas at the State Department. I guess that is what it takes to get promoted there, but for most of the military folks I worked with, also detailed to the State Department, it was frustrating and often got in the way of getting the missions completed. Nonetheless, it was important work, and one needed to play close attention to what came across one’s desk.

Which, of course, brings me to the Colorado Politics Out West Roundup and a man cloning giant sheep.

I’ll give you a moment to reread that sentence.

It seems up in Montana, an elderly gent of some 81 years is going to prison for six months because he illegally bred, well, giant sheep, or at least one, on his ranch where he primarily raises critters to be killed by hunters (though I’m not sure how much actual “hunting” is required when the poor animals are just in a field waiting for you).

The man illegally brought to this country tissue samples, including (ewww) the testicles from a large sheep breed found in central Asia, including (I know you were waiting for the connection) Kyrgyzstan, one of the countries in my State Department portfolio. He then used these — let’s call them “imported materials” — to breed the first of what I’m sure he hoped would be many truly giant sheep for hunters to kill.

Take a look at the picture of the nicknamed “Montana Mountain King” sheep that would be far more acceptable on the steppes (vast grasslands) of Kyrgyzstan and neighboring countries than in Montana. It’s a rather large beast with massive ram horns and he is likely, now that the court case is over, to spend his years in a zoo, no doubt startling visitors with his bulk.

The “stans,” as we at State called the nations of the region, tend to be poorly run and largely impoverished. Heck, back in my days at State, we had to occasionally include the cost of bribes paid to border guards as part of the cost of doing business. I’m not the least bit surprised the gentleman from the Big Sky State found someone to work with to obtain the needed “materials” for cloning. But in the U.S., we have fairly strict laws on cloning and that’s a good thing. The dangers of monster sheep roaming the countryside and creating havoc are limited, but we already know the dangers of killer bees and the threats other mutated insects pose to crops and people.

The judge in Montana admitted to having a very difficult time figuring out a sentence for the cloner. His age and his previously clean record suggested a light punishment, but the potential severity of bringing new and potentially hazardous critters to our shores is large. We need look no further than the accidental introduction of lampreys in the Great Lakes to see the danger. Colorado has its own set of problems with invasive animals and plants, including Zebra mussels, various beetles and the Purple Loosestrife.

I admit back when I worked at the State Department, I spent very little (though not zero) time on invasive species. We were worried about what we called drugs, guns, thugs and bugs, pretty much in that order. All four of those “invasive” items created dangers at home and significant problems in their nations of origin, including the Stans and the rest. The dangers are most certainly not zero.

I totally understand if you smiled when you learned about the giant sheep that now lives in Montana, until it is placed in a zoo. I get it is at least a tad bit funny. But the issue of invasive species, especially when humans help the process along, represent real dangers to Colorado and the rest of the U.S. We need to be alert and responsive, even to cute critters like sheep.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.