Giant Cloned Sheep Lead to Criminal Charges for ‘Alternative’ Rancher

In 1996, a sheep in Scotland became the first-ever mammal to be cloned, and in the years since, the practice has extended far beyond what scientists probably imagined. Just ask 80-year-old Montana man Arthur “Jack” Schubarth. 

Schubarth owns and operates a massive “alternative livestock” ranch in Vaughn, MT where customers pay him a fee to hunt on his private ranch. You won’t find regular sheep here, however. Instead, Schubarth allegedly created “massive hybrid sheep,” according to a U.S. Justice Department press release, using animal parts imported from central Asia to clone them and breed his own hybrid. These unique animals are prized trophies for wealthy hunters. 

On March 12, Schubarth pleaded guilty to two felony wildlife crimes for conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act and substantively violating the Lacey Act, which outlaws the trafficking of illegally taken animals or plants, per Gizmodo. According to DOJ, an associate of Schubarth’s illegally brought biological tissue from a Marco Polo sheep, the largest sheep species in the world, into the U.S. from Kyrgyzstan in 2013. The sheep are endangered and protected by international treaties and U.S. law. Montana law also blocks the import of these sheep or their parts in order to protect American sheep from disease.  

Prosecutors claim that Schubarth sent his Marco Polo sheep parts to a lab, which created 165 cloned embryos for him to use. He reportedly then “implanted the embryos into ewes on his ranch, resulting in a single, pure genetic male Marco Polo argali [sheep] that he named ‘Montana Mountain King’ or ‘MMK,'” they wrote. They found that he even sold MMK’s semen to sheep breeders in other states and sent 15 artificially inseminated sheep to a farm in Minnesota.  

“This was an audacious scheme to create massive hybrid sheep species to be sold and hunted as trophies,” Todd Kim, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, said of the plot. “In pursuit of this scheme, Schubarth violated international law and the Lacey Act, both of which protect the viability and health of native populations of animals.”

The indictment notes that Schubarth conspired with at least five other people, though they remain unnamed. Schubarth faces five years in prison and a fan of up to $250,000 for his actions. He’s scheduled to be sentenced in July.