An 81-year-old Montana man was sentenced to six months in federal prison on Monday for illegally combining tissue and testicles from huge sheep taken in Central Asia and the United States to develop hybrid sheep for captive trophy hunts in Texas and Minnesota.
U.S. District Court Judge Brian Morris stated that he struggled to come up with a punishment for Arthur “Jack” Schubarth of Vaughn, Montana. He said he assessed Schubarth’s age and lack of a criminal record before imposing a term that would dissuade anybody else from attempting to “change the genetic makeup of the creatures” on the planet.
Morris also penalized Schubarth $20,000 and ordered him to pay $4,000 to the United States Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Schubarth will be able 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 being sentenced.
Schubarth’s attorney, Jason Holden, said that cloning the gigantic Marco Polo sheep hunted in Kyrgyzstan in 2013 had wrecked his client’s “life, reputation, and family.”
“I think this has broken him,” Holden remarked.
Holden urged for a probationary term, claiming that Schubarth was a hardworking man who has always cared about animals and did something no one else could have done by cloning the huge sheep he named “Montana Mountain King” or MMK.
The animal has been confiscated by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and is being housed in an accredited facility until it can be transported to a zoo, according to Richard Bare, a special agent with the service.
Sarah Brown, an attorney with the United States Department of Justice, had requested that Schubarth be put to prison, claiming that his unlawful breeding program was vast, involved other states, and jeopardized the health of other wildlife. She stated that the crime required thinking, was sophisticated, and encompassed numerous criminal acts.
“Schubarth not only violated federal and state laws as well as international treaties but he and others illegally conspired to conceal their actions from authorities,” Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division said in a statement.
Schubarth owns Sun River Enterprises LLC, a 215-acre 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.
Marco Polo sheep are the world’s largest, weighing 300 pounds and with curled horns up to 5 feet long, according to court records.
“Normal mindset clouded by my enthusiasm”
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.
Prosecutors stated the animals implicated had a total value of more than $250,000 but less than $550,000. Prosecutors reported that hybrid sheep were also sold to people in Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, and West Virginia.
“Schubarth’s criminal conduct is not how Montanans treat our wildlife population,” U.S. Attorney Jesse Laslovich for the District of Montana said in a statement. “Indeed, his actions threatened Montana’s native wildlife species for no other reason than he and his co-conspirators wanted to make more money.”
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.
According to authorities, the conspiracy involved bringing in sheep breeds that are not permitted in Montana, including 43 sheep from Texas.
“You were so focused on getting around those rules you got off track,” Morris informed the crowd.
Holden sought a lower payment, claiming Schubarth fed and cared for the hybrid sheep on his property until they were butchered and the meat supplied to a food bank. Morris stated that the surviving hybrid sheep on his ranch containing Marco Polo DNA must be slaughtered by the end of the year, and the meat will be donated. Morris gave Schubarth until December 2025 to sell the Rocky Mountain bighorn hybrid sheep.
Schubarth will not be able to breed game stock during his three-year probation, according to Morris.
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 by 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.”