An 81-year-old Montana man named Arthur “Jack” Schubarth was sentenced to six months in federal prison for illegally cloning a hybrid sheep using genetic material from an endangered sheep species and then selling them to trophy hunting facilities in Texas and Minnesota. That’s some real criminal-from-a-dystopian-sci-fi-future kind of shit.
Schubarth pleaded guilty in March. Citing his advanced age and lack of a criminal record, US District Court Judge Brian Morris gave him a relative slap on the wrist for illegally using tissue and testicles from this large sheep species to clone them to be hunted by weirdos who want to kill cloned sheep. He got six months, a $20,000 fine, and he was ordered to pay $4,000 to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
Schubarth imported genetic material from the Marco Polo sheep species, the largest sheep in the world, from Kyrgyzstan and then created cloned embryos out of them. He sold the hybrids and their genetic material across multiple states, a direct violation of several federal and state laws. Prosecutors say the total value of the animals involved was somewhere between $250,000 and $550,000.
Schubarth owns a 215-acre “alternative livestock” ranch that buys and breeds all sorts of animals that are not native to the United States, like mountain sheep and mountain goats. But they’re not for consumption or farming. These animals are mostly purchased by private hunting preserves where folks can shoot captive trophy animals for a fee. It’s like Westworld but for sheep.
The judge ruled that the remaining hybrid sheep with Marco Polo DNA must be slaughtered by the end of the year and the meat donated to a food bank.
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