Man, 81, jailed after cloning giant sheep to try and ‘make them more valuable’
A man cloned giant sheep and ran a breeding operation for years in an attempt to create a ‘more valuable species’ to sell to hunting facilities.
Arthur ‘Jack’ Schubarth, 81, was sentenced on Monday to six months in prison for his scheme to raise giant hybrid sheep for captive hunting.
Schubarth brought parts of the Marco Polo argali sheep, which is the biggest in the world, from Kyrgyzstan to the US while failing to declare the import, according to the Justice Department.
Average Ovis ammon polii males can way over 300 pounds and grow horns exceeding five feet long.
Schubarth extracted genetic material from the sheep parts and took them to a laboratory to make cloned embryos, then implanted them on ewes at his 215-acre livestock ranch in Vaughn, Montana.
He bred one pure, genetic male argali that he named Montana Mountain King, or MMK.
Schubarth conspired with at least five others from 2013 to 2021 to breed ‘a larger hybrid species of sheep that would garner higher prices from shooting preserves’, court documents state.
He used MMK’s semen to impregnate ewes of different species that were prohibited in Montana in order to produce hybrid animals, according to court documents.
‘Their goal was to create a larger and more valuable species of sheep to sell to captive hunting facilities, primarily in Texas,’ stated the Justice Department.
Schubarth falsified veterinary inspection certificates and claimed that the hybrid species were allowed when transporting them out of state.
He was convicted of two felony wildlife crimes – conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act and substantially violating the act, which prohibits interstate trading of wildlife that is taken, obtained, transported or sold in violation of state or federal law.
US District Court Judge Brian Morris said he handed out the sentence considering Schubarth’s age and that he did not have a prior criminal record, while trying to deter others from attempting to ‘change the genetic makeup of the creatures’.
‘I will have to work the rest of my life to repair everything I’ve done,’ Schubarth told the judge.
He was also fined $20,000 to be paid to the Lacey Act Reward Fund, $4,000 to be given to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and slapped with a $200 special assessment.
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Schubarth’s lawyer, Jason Holden, said his client’s actions ruined his ‘life, reputation and family’ and that ‘this has broken him’.
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