HELENA, Montana – An 81-year-old Montana man is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court in Great Falls on Monday for illegally combining tissue and testicles from huge sheep taken in Central Asia and the United States to make hybrid sheep for captive trophy hunts in Texas and Minnesota.
According to court records, prosecutors are not seeking a prison sentence for Arthur “Jack” Schubarth of Vaughn, Montana. He is seeking a one-year probationary sentence for breaching federal wildlife trafficking rules. The maximum sentence for both Lacey Act breaches is five years in jail. The fine can be as much as $250,000, or twice the defendant’s financial gain.
Montana Man Faces Sentencing For Cloning Giant Sheep To Breed Large Sheep For Captive Trophy Hunts
Schubarth’s attorney requested a probationary term, claiming that cloning the gigantic Marco Polo sheep hunted in Kyrgyzstan had devastated his client’s “life, reputation, and family.”
However, the sentencing memorandum congratulates Schubarth on successfully cloning the endangered sheep, which he called Montana Mountain King. The animal has been confiscated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
“Jack did something no one else could, or has ever done,” the memo stated. “He built Montana Mountain King on a Montana ranch, in a barn. MMK is an exceptional animal, born of science and from a guy who, if he could rewrite history, would have left the problem of cloning a Marco Polo to Michael Crichton, the author of the science fiction novel Jurassic Park.
Schubarth owns Sun River Enterprises LLC, a 215-acre (87-hectare) alternative livestock ranch that buys, sells, and breeds “alternative livestock” such as mountain sheep, mountain goats, and ungulates, primarily for private hunting preserves where people pay to shoot captive trophy game animals, according to prosecutors. Schubarth stated he’d been in the game farm industry since 1987.
Schubarth pleaded guilty in March to conspiring with five other people to use tissue from an illegally imported Marco Polo sheep to clone the animal and then use the clone and its descendants to create a larger, hybrid species of sheep that would be more valuable for captive hunting operations.
According to court records, the Marco Polo sheep is the world’s largest, weighing 300 pounds (136 kilograms) and with curved horns that can reach 5 feet (1.5 meters) in length.
Schubarth sold MMK semen and hybrid sheep to three people in Texas, while a Minnesota resident sent 74 sheep to Schubarth’s property for insemination at various points during the conspiracy, according to court filings. Schubarth sold one direct descendent of MMK for $10,000 and several sheep with weaker MMK DNA for smaller sums.
According to court filings, Schubarth paid a hunting guide $400 in October 2019 for the testicles of a trophy-sized Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep taken in Montana, which was then excised and sold for semen.
Montana Man Faces Sentencing For Cloning Giant Sheep To Breed Large Sheep For Captive Trophy Hunts
The five co-conspirators were not identified in court documents, but Schubarth’s plea agreement requires him to fully cooperate with prosecutors and testify if called upon. Montana wildlife officials stated the situation is still under investigation.
Schubarth, in a letter attached to the sentencing statement, stated that he becomes tremendously passionate about any project he undertakes, including his “sheep project,” and is embarrassed of his conduct.
“I got my normal mindset clouded by my enthusiasm and looked for any grey area in the law to make the best sheep I could for this sheep industry,” he wrote in his diary. “My family has never been broke, but we are now.”
SOURCE | AP
