Montana man - 6 months prison for cloning giant sheep and breeding it for hunting

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GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) — An 81-year-old Montana man was sentenced Monday to six months in federal prison for illegally using tissue and testicles from large sheep hunted in Central Asia and the U.S. to create hybrid sheep for captive trophy hunting in Texas and Minnesota.

U.S. District Court Judge Brian Morris said he struggled to come up with a sentence for Arthur “Jack” Schubarth of Vaughn, Montana. He said he weighed Schubarth’s age and lack of a criminal record with a sentence that would deter anyone else from trying to “change the genetic makeup of the creatures” on the earth.

Morris also fined Schubarth $20,000 and ordered him to make a $4,000 payment to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Schubarth will be allowed to self-report to a Bureau of Prisons medical facility.

“I will have to work the rest of my life to repair everything I’ve done,” Schubarth told the judge just before sentencing.

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According to the Department of Justice, the scheme started in 2013 and continued until 2021 at Schubarth's ranch in Montana, the Sun River Enterprises LLC.

He started buying sperm from the endangered Central Asian Marco Polo Argali sheep and illegally importing it into the United States without declaring it.

Marco Polo Argali are the world's biggest sheep and an adult male can weigh more than 300 pounds with horns spanning over five feet, making them highly prized among hunters.

Sheep vary in size and weight depending on their breed, but it is rare for them to weigh over 300 pounds.

Schubarth sent the sperm to a lab to create cloned embryos which he implanted into his ewes to bring forth a 'single, pure genetic male Margo Polo argali' that he named the 'Montana Mountain King,' or the MMK.

He then used MMK's sperm to impregnate other ewes, creating more hybrids, all of which were banned in the state.

He sold the offspring to hunting lodges in Texas - sometimes fetching up to $10,000 a sheep - and also sold MMK's sperm to other sheep breeders in the state.

He also illegally paid $400 to a hunter to buy testicles from Rocky Mountain Bighorn sheep to extract sperm for cross-breeding.

His goal was to create a 'larger and more valuable species of sheep' to sell to shooting ranches in Texas.

To move the banned sheep in and out of the state, he forged vet inspection certificates, claiming they were a legal breed.

When authorities discovered the scheme, they removed MMK.

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