Talk about ewe-genics. A Montana man pleaded guilty on Tuesday to felony wildlife crimes—including a nearly decade-long conspiracy to breed “giant sheep hybrids” with the goal of hunting them for sport. He also cloned the animals to breed the creatures at his ranch.
Federal authorities charged 80-year-old Arthur “Jack” Schubarth of Vaughn, Montana with crimes related to purchasing, breeding, and selling “alternative livestock” between 2013 and 2021, according to a U.S. Department of Justice press release. Schubarth and “at least five other individuals” bred the hybrid species to sell them at hunting preserves.
“This was an audacious scheme to create massive hybrid sheep species to be sold and hunted as trophies,” Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, said in a statement. He added that Schubarth “violated international law and the Lacey Act, both of which protect the viability and health of native populations of animals.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Schubarth’s scheme began after he smuggled body parts of the Marco Polo argali sheep, the largest sheep species in the world, from Kyrgyzstan into the U.S. He then sent the creature’s genetic material to a lab to produce cloned embryos, which he used to impregnate the ewes on his ranch. The resulting offspring was “a single, pure genetic male Marco Polo argali,” that he dubbed “Montana Mountain King” (MMK).
He then used MMK semen to impregnate other species of sheep, creating enormous hybrid franken-sheep to sell to different hunting facilities across the U.S., though they were mostly found in Texas. The creatures were smuggled across the country via “forged veterinary inspection certificates” that claimed they were a legal species.
Of course, all of this is incredibly illegal. Schubarth and his co-conspirators were charged with conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act and also “substantively violating” the Lacey Act, which bans the interstate trading of wildlife that has been “taken, possessed, transported or sold in violation of federal or state law.” The federal law also forbids the sale of falsely labeled wildlife.
The Lacey Act and laws like it are crucial in combatting wildlife trafficking and also protecting endangered species. These issues threaten vulnerable species and ecosystems, and could further endanger domestic animals when exotic species (such as enormous sheep from Kyrgyzstan) are introduced.
“The kind of crime we uncovered here could threaten the integrity of our wildlife species in Montana,” Ron Howell, chief of enforcement for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, said in a statement.
Schubarth now faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for each of his two felony counts. He is set to be sentenced by a U.S. District Court judge on July 11.
It just goes to show you, wildlife crime doesn’t pay. While criminals think they can fleece the justice system with their shear audacity, they’ll never be able to pull the wool over the authorities’ eyes for long. Hopefully, they’ll feel sheepish about committing another stunt like this in the future.
