[imagesource:ai]

A farmer has been caught illegally breeding ‘massive’ mutant sheep to sell to private hunting reserves for up to R170,000, a court in Montana heard.

The 81-year-old Montana man is awaiting his sentencing for illegally using tissue and testicles from large sheep hunted in Central Asia and the US to illegally create these hybrid sheep for captive trophy hunting in Texas and Minnesota.

Arthur “Jack” Schubarth of Vaughn, Montana owns Sun River Enterprises LLC, an 87-hectare alternative livestock ranch, which buys, sells and breeds “alternative livestock” such as mountain sheep, mountain goats and ungulates. These animals are primarily for private hunting preserves, where people shoot captive trophy game animals for a fee.

He had been in the game farm business since 1987, but now Schubarth’s attorney said, cloning the giant Marco Polo sheep hunted in Kyrgyzstan has ruined his client’s “life, reputation and family.”

Schubarth pleaded guilty in March to charges that he, along with five others, conspired to use tissue from a Marco Polo sheep, which had been illegally brought into the US, to clone the animal. The plan was to use the clone and its offspring to create a larger, hybrid species of sheep that would be more valuable for captive hunting, which Schubarth named Montana Mountain King.

Marco Polo sheep are the largest in the world, weighing up to 136 kilograms with curled horns up to 1.5 metres long, court records said. Montana Mountain King sheep are meant to be more impressive.

Image: The Telegraph

Schubarth cashed in by selling MMK’s semen and hybrid sheep to three buyers in Texas, court records reveal. Meanwhile, a Minnesota resident transported 74 sheep to his ranch for insemination at various points during the scheme. Schubarth scored $10,000 (R170,000) for one direct MMK offspring, while those with less prestigious genetics fetched lower prices.

In October 2019, court records said, Schubarth paid a hunting guide $400 for the testicles of a trophy-sized Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep that had been harvested in Montana and then extracted and sold the semen, court records said. Sheep breeds that are not allowed in Montana were brought into the state as part of the conspiracy, including 43 sheep from Texas, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors are not seeking prison time for Schubarth, rather, they are asking for a one-year probationary sentence for violating the federal wildlife trafficking laws. The maximum punishment for the two Lacey Act violations is five years in prison. The fine can be up to $250,000 or twice the defendant’s financial gain.

Image: Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks

Schubarth, in a letter attached to the sentencing memo, said he becomes extremely passionate about any project he takes on, including his “sheep project,” and is ashamed of his actions.

“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. “My family has never been broke, but we are now.”

Interestingly, the sentencing memorandum couldn’t help but congratulate Schubarth for successfully cloning the endangered sheep.

“Jack did something no one else could, or has ever done,” the memo said. “On a ranch, in a barn in Montana, he created Montana Mountain King. MMK is an extraordinary animal, born of science, and from a man who, if he could re-write history, would have left the challenge of cloning a Marco Polo only to the imagination of Michael Crichton,” who is the author of the science fiction novel Jurassic Park.

The animal has been confiscated by US Fish and Wildlife Services. The case is still being investigated, Montana wildlife officials said.

[source:apnews]