By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2024-09-30 16:40:52 | Updated at 2024-10-01 01:34:22
9 hours ago
A Montana man found guilty of illegally cloning sheep is due to be sentenced today in a first-of-its-kind case.
Arthur 'Jack' Schubarth of Vaughn, 81 , used sperm imported from Kyrgyzstan to create a gigantic Marco Polo sheep he called the Montana Mountain King.
The decade-long attempt to clone and create hybrids from the hulking sheep, which can weigh 300lb and have curled horns up to five feet long, aimed to provide sheep to be used for trophy hunts in Texas and Minnesota.
Schubarth's attorney described his client's efforts as being like 'Jurassic Park' and told the court that cloning the enormous sheep has 'ruined his client's life'.
Arthur 'Jack' Schubarth of Vaughn, 81 , used sperm imported from Kyrgyzstan to create hybrids
The sheep nicknamed Montana Mountain King was cloned from a Marco Polo sheep
Schubarth - who has been in the trophy hunting business since 1987 - successfully cloned a Marco Polo argali sheep using remnants he bought from a hunter who had killed a sheep in Kyrgyzstan in 2019.
Schubart got a laboratory to create cloned embryos from Marco Polo argali sheep sperm.
After implanting the embryos in a ewe, a pure Marco Polo argali sheep was born, which Schubert named 'Montana Mountain King'- and which was used to artificially impregnate other ewes.
Montana Mountain King has now been confiscated by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services.
Prosecutors are not seeking prison time for Schubarth - the maximum punishment is five years in prison, or a fine up to $250,000 or twice the defendant's financial gain.
His attorney said in the sentencing memo, 'Jack did something no one else could, or has ever done.
'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 rewrite history, would have left the challenge of cloning a Marco Polo only to the imagination of Michael Crichton [the author of Jurassic Park].'
Schubarth's attorney described his client's efforts as being like 'Jurassic Park'
He created huge 'Franken-sheep' out of ram semen and his own mountain eyes
Schubarth owns Sun River Enterprises LLC, a 215-acre alternative livestock ranch, which buys, sells and breeds 'alternative livestock' such as mountain sheep, mountain goats and ungulates.
The animals are used for private hunting preserves, where people shoot captive trophy game animals for a fee, prosecutors said.
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.
He said: '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. My family has never been broke, but we are now.'
Schubarth pleaded guilty in March to charges that he and five other people conspired to use tissue from a Marco Polo sheep illegally brought into the U.S. to clone that animal.
Schubarth also paid a hunting guide $400 for the testicles of a trophy-sized Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep in 2019 that had been harvested in Montana and then extracted and sold the semen, court records said.
Schubarth sold semen from Montana Mountain King along with hybrid sheep to three people in Texas
Sheep breeds that are not allowed in Montana were brought into the state during the conspiracy, prosecutors said.
Schubarth sold semen from Montana Mountain King along with hybrid sheep to three people in Texas.
A Minnesota resident brought 74 sheep to Schubarth's ranch for them to be inseminated at various times, court records said.
Schubarth sold one direct offspring from MMK for $10,000 and other sheep with lesser MMK genetics for smaller amounts.
