Who wants to shoot a Marco Polo sheep in Montana?

[LuketheDog]

You may have missed your chance

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

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...

www.yahoo.com

 

[MThuntr]

You might have missed this one.

Montana Mountain King - Vaughn, MT man pleads guilty to felony wildlife crimes

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/montana-man-pleads-guilty-federal-wildlife-trafficking-charges-part-yearslong-effort-create#:~:text=Their%20goal%20was%20to%20create,sheep%20were%20legally%20permitted%20species. Pretty wild story. Hopefully they throw the book at him.

www.hunttalk.com

 

[Gerald Martin]

FWP has it covered. New legislation authorizing a Supertag raffle to follow shortly.

 

[tjones]

You may have missed your chance

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

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...

www.yahoo.com

The comments on the Yahoo story are very much worthy of a second thread on HT.

 

[Johnny Bravo]

Awe man.....too bad he got caught...

 

[D_Walt]

isn’t Montana trying to exterminate all their deer? Seems like gigantic cloned sheep would fill the void quite nicely. Grow the herd, 90/10 split on $15k NR tags, everyone wins, 280” sheep for everybody! Win/win/win!!!

The guy sounds like an evil genius but he’s wasted his talents trying to grow enormous sheep instead of focusing on world domination.

 

[Flynarrow]

The same guys buying that sheep-in-a-pen would be happy squatting behind that critter about 20 feet for the customary picture. Size does matter they say.

 

[4ohSick]

FWP has it covered. New legislation authorizing a Supertag raffle to follow shortly.

Just put whoever is in charge of mule deer management on this, we'll have them wiped out in one season.

 

[Marshian]

Cwd meeting cloned sheep seems like stuff of low budget sci-fi gold.

 

[MT_elk]

Unbelievable!

 

[ismith]

Cwd meeting cloned sheep seems like stuff of low budget sci-fi gold.

Throw in a redemption arc and some high dollar tent shanking and you’ll have a blockbuster hit.

 

[treedagain]

Maybe I am off my rocker.....but I think it is pretty innovative to to have done that. Shooting a caged ram no. Turn some loose with the Ibex in NM? How cool that would be?

Talk about a once in a lifetime combo hunt.

 

[Sytes]

Designed to promote sales for private Texas hunting preserves. Quite the plan!



Amazing!

The embryos were later implanted in a ewe, resulting in a pure Marco Polo argali sheep that Schubert named “Montana Mountain King,” the documents show. Semen from Montana Mountain King was used to artificially impregnate other ewes to create a larger and more valuable species of sheep, including one offspring that he reached an agreement to sell to two people in Texas for $10,000, according to the documents.

Male argali sheep can top 300 pounds with horns up to 5 feet long, according to officials, making them prized among some hunters. They are protected under international convention as a threatened species and outlawed for import into Montana to protect native sheep from disease and hybridization.

A person who was not named in court documents shipped 74 ewes of a prohibited sheep species from Minnesota to Schubarth’s ranch to be artificially inseminated with Montana Mountain King semen, the documents show. Offspring that had only a portion of the central Asian sheep’s genetics sold for lesser amounts.

In 2019, Schubarth paid $400 to a hunting guide for testicles from a trophy-sized Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep killed in Montana. Schubarth extracted semen from bighorn sheep testicles and used it to breed large bighorn sheep and sheep crossbred with the argali species, the documents show.

Up to five yeard and $250k fine for each count.

But...

Authorities agreed under the terms of a plea deal not to pursue further charges against the defendant pending his cooperation in the government’s ongoing investigation in the wildlife trafficking case.

Sentencing for Schubarth is set for July 11 before U.S. District Judge Brian Morris.
It will be interesting to see what, if anything he is sentenced to "for his cooperation". Hopefully the full prison / fine for each count is applied if he fails to abide by the plea deal. Doubtful though here's to hoping...

Montana man used animal tissue and testicles to breed 'giant' sheep for sale to hunting preserves

Federal prosecutors say a Montana rancher illegally used tissue and testicles from wild sheep that were killed by hunters in central Asia and the U.S. to breed “giant” sheep hybrids for sale to private hunting preserves in Texas

abcnews.go.com