Montana rancher illegally created giant sheep to sell for big cash
A Montana rancher created giant hybrid sheep and sold them for hunting, creating the lambs by using illegally imported genetic material from the world’s largest sheep species, federal prosecutors say.
The moneymaking scheme sought to create a hybrid species of sheep that could be sold at a high price to hunting preserves in the United States and would mimic the world’s biggest breed, the Marco Polo argali sheep, a threatened species that lives in central Asia and is prized by trophy hunters.
Arthur “Jack” Schubarth, 80, created more than 150 cloned embryos of the species and successfully bred a male Marco Polo argali, selling one of its offspring for US$10,000, according to the criminal complaint filed against him by federal prosecutors. He used the sheep’s semen to breed it with other species, creating hybrid sheep and selling them to people in Texas and Minnesota.
Schubarth pleaded guilty to the two felony wildlife counts against him this week in federal court. He faces up to 10 years in prison and fines of up to US$500,000.
Schubarth sold and bred mountain sheep, mountain goats and similar breeds at his 215-acre ranch in Vaughn, Mont. He began his effort to clone the Marco Polo argali in 2013, working with at least five other people — all unnamed in court documents — over the course of eight years, prosecutors said. No one else has been charged in connection with the case, the Justice Department said Thursday.
“This was an audacious scheme,” Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division said in a statement.
Marco Polo argali sheep can weigh more than 300 pounds (136 kilograms). They are big prizes for trophy hunters, who travel to Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Mongolia to hunt them. The breed is protected by an international convention and under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. They are on Montana’s list of prohibited exotic wildlife.
To carry out his scheme, Schubarth obtained tissue from a Marco Polo argali that had been hunted in Kyrgyzstan from someone who smuggled it into the U.S., according to the complaint. He then took the sheep tissue to a lab, which used it to create 165 cloned embryos.
Schubarth had embryos implanted in some of the ewes on his ranch, which resulted in the birth of a purebred male Marco Polo argali, which Schubarth named Montana Mountain King.
He then used Montana Mountain King’s sperm to impregnate other species of ewe. He also sold Montana Mountain King’s semen.