Arthur \u201cJack\u201d Schubarth faces felony charges for Lacey Act violations after selling illegally hybridized offspring and “straws full of semen” from a cloned Marco Polo sheep<\/p>\n
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Marco Polo sheep are an internationally protected species. Photography by okyela \/ Adobe Stock<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
A Montana game farm owner is in a world of trouble after federal investigators busted up his yearslong, multi-state wild sheep cloning, breeding, and trafficking ring that involved test tube embryos, straws of semen, falsified veterinary certificates, and tens of thousands of dollars exchanging hands.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Arthur \u201cJack\u201d Schubarth of Vaughn, Montana entered a plea agreement<\/a> in Montana District Court in Great Falls on Monday, in which he pled guilty to one felony count of Lacey Act trafficking and one felony count of conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act. The charges stem from a nine-year stint<\/a> that began in January 2013, when Schubarth hired an unnamed third party to store tissues from a Marco Polo sheep (an Argali subspecies) that he acquired from an illegally imported, hunter-harvested carcass from Kyrgyzstan. He then paid someone to use DNA from that tissue to clone more sheep. That cloning attempt, which Schubarth forked over $4,200 for, provided him with 165 Marco Polo sheep embryos, one of which would later become the \u201cMontana Mountain King\u201d ram whose semen Schubarth started harvesting in 2018.<\/p>\n Thus began the Dr. Frankenstein-esque interstate exchange of sheep semen, artificially inseminated argali and ewes, and hybridized offspring. This trafficking ring went on for two years, violating the Lacey Act<\/a> with every state border crossing. In 2020, traffickers started acquiring falsified veterinary certificates from state livestock boards for easier transport. They claimed their illegally hybridized sheep were actually New Mexico Dahl sheep, bighorn sheep, and domestic sheep.<\/p>\n Marco Polo sheep<\/a> are the largest wild sheep species in the world. They\u2019re also known as Pamir argali, due to their native range in the Pamir Mountains<\/a> of Tajikistan, Afghanistan, China, and Kyrgyzstan. Marco Polo sheep are classified as threatened under the Endangered Species Act and as an Appendix II species<\/a> under the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES). This means their international trade is under strict control and requires permits from their range nations. They are considered an illegal species in Montana under state law.\u00a0<\/p>\n Five additional culprits are identified in the charging documents as \u201cPerson A\u201d through \u201cPerson E,\u201d three from Texas, one from Minnesota, and one from Montana. All five were involved in the \u201calternative livestock husbandry\u201d industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n