Montana Man Pleads Guilty to Creating Massive Franken-Sheep With Cloned Animal Parts

[bcr229]

Not a herp but interesting since the Lacey Act & CITES species are involved.

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/montana-man-pleads-guilty-creating-003000858.html

Tue, March 12, 2024 at 8:30 PM EDT

An 80-year-old man in Montana pleaded guilty Tuesday to two felony wildlife crimes involving his plan to let paying customers hunt sheep on private ranches. But these weren’t just any old sheep. They were “massive hybrid sheep” created by illegally importing animal parts from central Asia, cloning the sheep, and then breeding an enormous hybrid species.

Arthur “Jack” Schubarth, 80, owns and operates the 215-acre “alternative livestock” ranch in Vaughn, Montana where he started this operation in 2013, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice. Alternative livestock includes hybrids of mountain sheep, mountain goats, and other large mammals which are often used for trophy hunting by wealthy people.

An unnamed accomplice of Schubart kicked off the decade-long scheme by illegally bringing biological tissue from a Marco Polo sheep, the largest sheep in the world, from Kyrgyzstan into the U.S. in 2013, according to prosecutors.

How big are these sheep? An average male can weigh over 300 pounds with horns over 5 feet wide, giving them the largest sheep horns on the planet. The sheep are endangered and protected by both international treaties and U.S. law. Montana also forbids the import of these foreign sheep or their parts in an effort to protect local American sheep from disease.

Once Schubart had smuggled his sheep parts into the U.S., he sent them to an unnamed lab which created 165 cloned embryos, according to the DOJ.

“Schubarth then implanted the embryos in ewes on his ranch, resulting in a single, pure genetic male Marco Polo argali that he named ‘Montana Mountain King’ or MMK,” federal authorities wrote in a press release.

By the time Schubart had his Montana Mountain King he used the cloned sheep’s semen to artificially impregnate female sheep, creating hybrid animals. The goal, as the DOJ explains it, was to create these massive new sheep that could then be used for sports hunting on large ranches. Schubart also forged veterinarian inspection certificates to transport the new hybrid sheep under false pretenses, and sometimes even sold semen from his Montana Mountain King to other breeders in the U.S.

Schubart sent 15 artificially inseminated sheep to Minnesota in 2018 and sold 37 straws of Montana Mountain King’s semen to someone in Texas, according to an indictment filed last month. Schubart also offered to sell an offspring of the Montana Mountain King, dubbed the Montana Black Magic, to someone in Texas for $10,000.

Discussions between Schubart and an unnamed person apparently included what to call this new breed of sheep they were creating. The other person said another co-conspirator had suggested the name “Black Argali,” though noting “we can’t,” presumably because it would give away the fact that these sheep were descended from the argali species.

Schubart pleaded guilty to violating the Lacey Act, and conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act, which makes it a crime to acquire, transport or sell wildlife in contravention of federal law.

“This was an audacious scheme to create massive hybrid sheep species to be sold and hunted as trophies,” assistant Attorney General Todd Kim from the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division said in a press release.

“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,” Kim continued.

Schubart conspired with at least five other people who are not named in the indictment. Schubarth faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 and is scheduled to be sentenced by Chief U.S. District Court Judge Brian M. Morris for the District of Montana in July.

 

[Socratic Monologue]

That's quite the scheme.

The disease-preventing import restriction isn't just at the state level, that's a federal (USDA) policy (list by exporting country here).

We recently expanded our sheep flock to include Gotland sheep, named for the Swedish island they are from. Since semen is the only part of a live sheep legally importable from Sweden to the US, the breed had to be recreated using AI (not the ChatGTP kind) from closely related northern European breeds that were already in the US. The Gotlands made that way are up to about 98% pure (that's kept track of on the pedigrees).

 

[Martin Nowak]

This statement is typical hyperbole and sensational to inflame public opinion.

"This was an audacious scheme to create massive hybrid sheep species to be sold and hunted as trophies,” assistant Attorney General Todd Kim from the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division said in a press release."

The concept of uniquely large animals to hunt is very common in the U.S. High fence whitetail deer hunting venues exist in many states. State Game and Fish Commissions maintain record books for sizes of wild harvested fish and game animals.
(I don't know all the details of this case and have not read the court proceedings. Likely more to the story than the reporter describes.)
All manner of attempts to breed larger cattle via species cross breeding occurs. Producing larger animals via chemicals is not unheard of. All designed to appeal to revenue producing activities and food products.

Game and Fish Commissions do the same thing all the time to generate revenue. Currently before the Alabama legislature is a co-sponsored bill (HB15 - 2024) which the G&F endorses - to release Florida strain largemouth bass along the Coosa River waterway. The Bill includes the term hybrids as well. These bass get much larger than native DNA strain bass and are more aggressive. Such is designed to sell more fishing licenses and generate "fishing and tourism revenue for the state". Auburn advises the G&F and private land owners on such matters and every "managed pond / lake" in Alabama will have Florida strain bass and non-native bream / sunfish. How is this any different than the sheep guy in Montana producing larger sheep? (back to the statement and independent of Lacey Act related to Marco Polo sheep). Here is the Alabama Bill - very brief in content.
https://legiscan.com/AL/text/HB15/2024

To bring the question into herptiles, in the reverse, why not allow so-called dwarf lines of larger snake species to be kept? Many states regulate by species or size. Rarely a combination of the two demographics. Or discussions of hybrid reptiles (independent of one's position on hybridizing animals).

 

[madagascarboid]

The government will usurp, sensationalize and always promote the "good guy(government) and the bad guy(we the people)' Paradyme to usurp the rights and LIBERTY of "We the PEOPLE." Or ironically in this case "We the SHEEPLE." The government is not my daddy....The majority just wants to be left alone from their invasive intrusions into every aspects of our lives....Cleptocrats that should focus on the rampant violent crime within our Nation....

 

[bcr229]

Update:

Montana man gets 6 months in prison for cloning giant sheep and breeding it

Arthur “Jack” Schubarth of Vaughn cloned Marco Polo sheep hunted in Kyrgyzstan.

montanafreepress.org

 

[Martin Nowak]

I think the principles of this case and approaches used by the DOJ could have bearing on the herptile industry. He pled guilty so no indictment and no grand jury - saved the government a lot of time and money. A core issue of the charges is the potential disease distribution to native animals. Here is a link to the charges. Thanks, bcr229 - good update.

https://dailymontanan.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/schubarth-ranch-sheep-cloning.pdf

 

[bcr229]

More fallout: https://www.wired.com/story/the-us-has-a-cloned-sheep-contraband-problem-montana-mountain-king/

The US Has a Cloned Sheep Contraband Problem​

Nov 11/2024

After a Montana man illegally cloned and bred an endangered giant sheep species, government agencies must now contend with the illicit offspring.

In September, a man from Montana was sentenced to six months in prison after he trafficked a clone of one of the world’s largest sheep species. Court documents allege that Arthur Schubarth trafficked body parts of a near threatened Marco Polo argali sheep into the US from Kyrgyzstan and in 2015 contracted with a lab to create a cloned sheep he later named Montana Mountain King (MMK). Later, the documents allege, Schubarth used MMK’s semen to impregnate ewes and then sold offspring—each carrying some Marco Polo argali genetics—to people involved in big game hunting.

It’s a weird case. It’s likely only the second time that an American has been prosecuted for a wildlife crime that involved animal cloning. (In 2011 a man was fined $1.5 million and ordered to surrender smuggled deer as well as nearly $1 million of deer semen—which investigators believed he intended to use to clone whitetail deer—in a case that involved the unlawful purchase and transportation of deer.)

There’s another strange element to Schubarth’s story: Potentially dozens of MMK’s descendants may now be at large in the US. These sheep that contain genetics from MMK are defined as contraband in the handful of plea agreements that were signed by men who were alleged to have bought sheep from Schubarth or transported ewes to his ranch in Montana to be impregnated. What isn’t clear is how many sheep are at large, and what exactly has happened to them.

However, legal documents offer some clues. One legal filing in the case against Schubarth alleges that in November 2018 one person transported 26 ewes to Schubarth’s ranch in Montana to be inseminated with MMK semen, and a year later the same person later transported another 48 ewes. In July 2020, the same document alleges, two other people transported another 43 sheep to Schubarth’s ranch. That’s at least several dozen sheep that may have carried MMK’s offspring—and each of those may have had several lambs.

The same document also alleges that one of MMK’s offspring was transported from Minnesota to Schubarth’s ranch in Montana in May 2019. Then in July 2020 Schubarth agreed to sell 11 of MMK’s grandchildren for a total of $13,200 and one of MMK’s children, a sheep called Montana Black Magic, for $10,000. It’s also alleged that Schubarth sold another Marco Polo hybrid sheep to a man who lives in South Dakota.

At least one sheep is accounted for: MMK himself. The sheep had initially been taken to a Zoological Association of America accredited facility in Oregon, says Christina Meister of the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Office of Public Affairs. On October 2, MMK was flown across the country to Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, New York, where he will be housed for the long term. MMK is expected to be on exhibition at the zoo in mid-November, Meister says. (The USFWS declined to answer other questions posed by WIRED.)

The fate of the other sheep is less clear. The four men who have been indicted in these interlinked cases all signed plea agreements that require them to quarantine any sheep in their possession containing Marco Polo argali genetics. The plea agreements also require the men to “abandon all property rights” in the sheep and allow the USFWS to neuter the animals. The men also have to submit autopsy reports to the USFWS when any of the sheep die.

“It was an extremely interesting case,” says Chris Tenoglia, an attorney who represented Michael Ball—a man charged with false labeling of wildlife under the Lacey Act, which prohibits the transportation, trade, and mislabeling of certain species. Ball pleaded guilty to the Lacey Act violation and was ordered to serve one year’s probation and pay a fine of $20,000. Tenoglia says that Ball euthanized the nine sheep in his possession that had been crossbred with the cloned sheep.

“[Ball] is in the animal husbandry and breeding business and he did not want one of the cloned sheep he had to crossbreed with the stock he had on hand, accidentally,” Tenoglia wrote in an email to WIRED. “He was worried that no matter how hard he might try to keep them separated, it might not work, and he did not want to have a problem, assuming that could happen in the future.”

Attorney Carl Jensen represented another defendant, Riley Niewenhuis, who pleaded guilty to a count of trafficking under the Lacey Act. Niewenhuis was sentenced to serve a 12-month term of probation and pay a fine of $20,000. Jensen says that he does not know if Niewenhuis has any of the hybrid sheep in his position, but is sure “he is doing everything to comply with whatever the government required of him.”

A trafficking case that involves animal cloning is extremely unusual, says Monique Sosnowski, a wildlife crime and security analyst at Farmingdale State College in New York state. It raises all kinds of strange questions, she says, like whether a cloned sheep should be considered an endangered or invasive species. According to Tenoglia, one of the government’s worries was that if MMK’s offspring were left to roam in the wild, they could dominate and outcompete native species in the US. When WIRED asked the Department of Justice about this concern, spokesperson Matthew Nies said that the department had nothing to add.

The Schubarth case also raises the question of whether regulations on cloning companies should be tightened to ensure they’re not involved in cloning endangered species. Cloning is catching on, with thousands of dogs, cats, and horses having been cloned in the US already. Legal documents allege that in 2015 Schubarth paid a deposit of $4,200 to enter into a “ovine cloning contract” to clone the Marco Polo argali sheep illegally trafficked into the US.

Blake Russell, president at pet cloning company ViaGen Pets, says his company requires its clients to sign a document stating they have the legal rights to clone from the tissue they’re providing. “If it is something of ‘sensitive’ origin, then we would investigate, and we have many friends in regulatory roles—they can investigate anything suspicious,” Russell wrote in an email to WIRED. The Schubarth case was a “one-off bad deal for all involved. We were not the party involved in the cloning. This case will increase diligence for all of us in the field to make certain that we are not violating any regulations.”

In the meantime, there is still the matter of those hybrid sheep. A fourth man implicated in the Schubarth case was sentenced to three years probation and $25,000 in fines. He has also signed a plea agreement requiring him to quarantine any hybrid sheep in his possession. He is alleged to have bought 12 hybrid Marco Polo argali sheep from Schubarth.

As cloning technology becomes more widespread and cheaper, it’s likely that wildlife law will have to play catch-up, says Sosnowski. There are a lot of exotic species out there that people will be interested in cloning, she says. “I’m sure this is only going to be the first of many cases.”