Montana Rancher Pleads Guilty to Plan to Create Giant Sheep Hybrid

In January 2013, a Montana cattle rancher returned to the United States from Kyrgyzstan to hide tissue from a Marco Polo argali sheep, one of the largest in the world, federal prosecutors said.

The worker took the tissue to Arthur Schubarth, 80, a farmer from Vaughn, Mont., who planned to use it to create a giant sheep hybrid that he could sell to shooting sanctuaries, according to prosecutors. They said Schubarth illegally used tissue from the animal, which is banned in Montana, to create the species for nearly a decade until 2021 — including in 2019, when he bought the testicles of a bighorn sheep to extract sperm.

His scheme was discovered by authorities after they learned he was using forged veterinary inspection certificates to transport sheep in and out of Montana, prosecutors said.

On Tuesday, Mr. Schubarth pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Montana to two wildlife crimes: conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act and substantive violation of the Lacey Act, which prohibits the trade in illegally captured wildlife, it said Ministry of Justice in one rack on Tuesday.

It was unclear exactly how authorities discovered Mr. Schubarth’s plot. The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks declined to comment, saying the investigation was still active. In a statement Tuesday, Ron Howell, the department’s chief enforcement officer, described the case as “complex.”

“The type of crime we have uncovered here could threaten the integrity of our wildlife in Montana,” Mr. Howell said.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which also investigated the case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

As part of the plan to create a giant sheep hybrid, an unknown livestock farmer returned to the United States from Kyrgyzstan in 2013 with tissue from the Marco Polo argali sheep, which was undeclared upon arrival, prosecutors said. The male Marco Polo argali sheep, native to the mountainous regions of Central Asia, can weigh more than 300 pounds and have horns that can be more than five feet wide, the Justice Department said.

Argali sheep are protected internationally, as well as in the United States, by the Endangered Species Act. According to the Department of Justice, they are banned in Montana to protect native sheep from disease and hybridization.

According to court documents, Mr. Schubarth contracted a laboratory in October 2015 to create cloned embryos using tissue from the Marco Polo argali sheep. About a year later, in November 2016, Mr. Schubarth received 165 cloned embryos, which he then implanted in ewes on his sprawling 215-acre farm, according to court documents.

In May 2017, one purely genetically male Marco Polo argali sheep was born, and Mr. Schubarth named it Montana Mountain King, prosecutors said. The following year, Mr. Schubarth began harvesting semen from Montana Mountain King, and was soon shipping straws of his semen to buyers across the country, court documents show.

Mr. Schubarth then teamed up with at least five other people across the country to try to create an even larger sheep hybrid — including in 2019, when he purchased the testicles of a bighorn sheep, according to prosecutors.

According to court documents, in July 2020, Mr. Schubarth agreed to sell 11 descendants of the Montana Mountain King to someone in Texas for $13,200. Mr. Schubarth and his co-conspirators were able to transport offspring of the Montana Mountain King across the country using forged veterinary inspection certificates that claimed the offspring were a legally permitted species, prosecutors said.

The co-conspirators who worked with Mr. Schubarth were not identified by prosecutors or in court documents. It was unclear Thursday whether they would also be charged.

Mr. Schubarth, who is expected to be sentenced on July 11, faces up to five years in prison for each offense, along with a fine of up to $250,000 and three years of supervised release, the Justice Department said.

A lawyer for Mr. Schubarth did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Todd Kim, assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, said in a statement Tuesday that Schubarth participated in a plot that could have harmed native wildlife in the United States.

“This was a bold plan to create huge hybrid sheep species that could be sold and hunted as trophies,” he said.