Montana rancher sentenced to jail time for breeding monster sheep

Remember Arthur Schubarth? The man who used genetic material to create monster hybrid sheep? Well, he was just sentenced to six months in jail for this entrepreneurial venture, proving that not all ideas are great ones.

The 81-year-old Montana rancher pleaded guilty to using tissue and testicles obtained from Marco Polo argali sheep to breed giant hybrid sheep for private hunting preserves in Texas. Schubarth and at least five other people began their foray into creating the monster hybrid in 2013 with the goal of grabbing “high prices from hunting preserves,” according to court documents. Using the biological tissue Schubarth obtained from a hunter who killed the Marco Polo sheep in Kyrgyzstan, he was able to clone embryos in a lab and then implant them into an ewe that gave birth to a pure Marco Polo argali sheep that Schubert named “Montana Mountain King.” From there, he used semen from Montana Mountain King to artificially impregnate other ewes to create a larger and more valuable species of sheep, selling one particular lamb for $10,000.

Last October, Schubarth was found guilty of two felonies: conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act and substantively violating the Lacey Act.

Marco Polo sheep are native to the Pamir region of Central Asia and are not allowed in Montana to protect native bighorn sheep from disease and hybridization. Marco Polo argali are protected under the Endangered Species Act and currently monitored internationally by CITIES, according to Earth.com.

“Schubarth’s criminal conduct is not how Montanans treat our wildlife population,” said Jesse Laslovich, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Montana.

Along with his six-month prison sentence, Schubarth has to pay a $20,000 fine and $4,000 community service payment for his crime. He also has a three-year supervised release.