An 81-year-old Montana man, Arthur “Jack” Schubarth, faces sentencing in federal court Monday in Great Falls for his role in illegally using tissue and testicles from large sheep hunted in Central Asia and the U.S. to create hybrid sheep for captive trophy hunting in Texas and Minnesota.
According to court records, prosecutors are not seeking prison time for Schubarth, who resides in Vaughn, Montana. He is requesting a one-year probationary sentence for violating federal wildlife trafficking laws. The maximum punishment for the two Lacey Act violations is up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, or twice the defendant’s financial gain.
Schubarth’s attorney argued that cloning the giant Marco Polo sheep hunted in Kyrgyzstan has devastated his client’s “life, reputation, and family.” However, the sentencing memorandum also commends Schubarth for successfully cloning the endangered sheep, which he named Montana Mountain King. The animal has been confiscated by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services.
“Jack did something no one else could, or has ever done,” the memo stated. “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 the science fiction novel Jurassic Park.
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 shoot captive trophy game animals for a fee, prosecutors said. Schubarth has been in the game farm business since 1987.
In March, Schubarth pleaded guilty to charges that he and five others conspired to use tissue from a Marco Polo sheep illegally brought into the U.S. to clone the animal. They then used 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, the largest in the world, can weigh as much as 300 pounds and possess curled horns up to five feet long.
Schubarth sold semen from Montana Mountain King, along with hybrid sheep, to three individuals in Texas. A Minnesota resident brought 74 sheep to Schubarth’s ranch for insemination at various times during the conspiracy, court records indicated. Schubarth sold one direct offspring from Montana Mountain King for $10,000 and other sheep with lesser MMK genetics for smaller amounts.
In October 2019, Schubarth paid a hunting guide $400 for the testicles of a trophy-sized Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep harvested in Montana. He then extracted and sold the sheep’s semen, according to court records.
Sheep breeds not allowed in Montana were brought into the state as part of the conspiracy, including 43 sheep from Texas, prosecutors said.
The five co-conspirators have not been named in court records, but Schubarth’s plea agreement requires him to cooperate fully with prosecutors and testify if called upon. The case remains under investigation, according to Montana wildlife officials.
In a letter attached to the sentencing memo, Schubarth expressed deep regret for his actions, stating he becomes extremely passionate about any project he undertakes, including his “sheep project.”
“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.”
