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

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 135 points – Montana man used animal tissue and testicles to breed 'giant' sheep for sale to hunting preserves
apnews.com

A Montana rancher illegally used tissue and testicles from wild sheep killed by hunters in central Asia and the U.S. to breed “giant” hybrid sheep for sale to private hunting preserves in Texas, according to court documents and federal prosecutors.

Arthur “Jack” Schubarth, 80, of Vaughn, Montana pleaded guilty to felony charges of wildlife trafficking and conspiracy to traffic wildlife during an appearance Tuesday before a federal judge in Great Falls. Each count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Court documents describe a yearslong conspiracy, beginning in 2013, in which Schubarth and at least five other people sought to create “giant sheep hybrids” by cross-breeding different species. Their goal was to garner high prices from hunting preserves where people shoot captive trophy game animals for a fee.

Using biological tissue obtained from a hunter who killed a wild sheep in Kyrgyzstan belonging to the world’s largest species of the animals — Marco Polo argali sheep — Schubarth procured cloned embryos of the animal from a lab, according to court documents.

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I don't really understand why that is illegal considering that it's pretty similar to what the meat industry does. Maybe there are some laws to protect against invasive species, but he didn't want to free them. Maybe dealing with poachers? Maybe he just needed a license?

CITES is the international treaty.

The offspring of wild animals are still very wild, even when crossbred with a domesticated breed. If they wanted to do it, they needed to get a licence to do it. That they did not get a licence suggests they knew they would not be granted one. Because breeding fancy animals for rich people to shoot is not a good justification.

Oh so being rich enough to hire legal counsel to get you the permit makes you qualified? Got it

Licensed breeders and keepers of captive wild animals are certainly wealthier than yer average Joe. But if you're trying to argue that these offenders are being punished for their poverty, you really, really ought to read the article first.

Because breeding fancy animals for rich people to shoot is not a good justification.

I was like "who cares, cool science stuff. Free that man." Until you said the above.

Captive animal facilities where game species can be raised and hunted were banned in Montana under a 2000 ballot initiative

I think they took too big swig from twistonium bottle. Instead of "guy was organizing an illegal thing and it turned out he jumped through quite a few hoops to get to that point", they made it sound like the breeding part was bad

Ah, ok.

On a separate note: Cloning giant sheep from poached ones sounds kinda like a supervillain and I now want to clone my own army of poached animals.

Cloning giant sheep from poached ones sounds kinda like a supervillain and I now want to clone my own army of poached animals

Oh yeah, I'm impressed that it works so well that he only needed like pieces from one killed animal to succeed

Part of it is also importing animal tissue (and sperm) without the proper paperwork and approval.

That's a BIG no-no.

Yeah I seem to remember some kind of global illness thing recently. Probably best to avoid that happening again.

The breeding part is what violated state, federal, and international law.

The breeding itself? Because these are wild? Or do you need some license to breed animals?

You didn't read the article, did you?

I did. I don't get how the creation of the breed was the illegal part and not the creating "shooting range"

From the article:

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.

It doesn't matter that they wanted to shoot the hybrids. They could have been making a petting zoo and it would have still been illegal.

Both this and the meat industry should be illegal 🤷

Genetically creating a new species with the sile purpose of capital and hunting and killing. Fuck that....

I mean, that's every farm animal

Killing, yes. Hunting and capital, not necessarily.

A subsistence farmer with a coop of chickens is not the same as this guy creating giant sheep for people to pay him so they can hunt them for sport.

I think the fact that they could escape and contaminate local native sheep populations is a much bigger problem though.

were the cloned sheep sterile or not? It sounds like they shouldn't be able to cross breed but somehow he created them so I'd imagine it'd be like ligers.

It's like those movies where technologically advanced aliens abduct people and do all sorts of terrible shit, treating them like cattle.

Then we just realize we are the advanced aliens terrorizing everything on our planet.

Can't find a picture of an argali near a human unless it was hunted, but they look pretty massive.

And the one this guy bred was bigger than these? Than the 300 pound sheep?

Do entrrprising Kyrgyzstanis ride these sheep?

Do entrrprising Kyrgyzstanis ride these sheep?

I'm gonna go out on a horn here and say probably not.

I need to find out about the Montana mountain king spawn and their rideability next.

Let me know if you have any insight

Someone is going to go over this law with a fine toothed comb.

Importing endangered animals? Clearly illegal.

Killing endangered animals and bringing in parts? Clearly illegal.

Bringing in endangered animal DNA and making more endangered animals? 🤔

I dunno... I'm not well versed enough in law, ecology, or animal husbandry. It really feels like this is a new area.

Let's take the hunting angle out of it. Say I brought in Siberian Tiger DNA for the express purpose of creating and breeding tigers and hybrids in captivity... wouldn't that just be species preservation?

Zoos already deal with this on a regular basis. They are allowed to keep and breed endangered species. They are not allowed to sell them or their parts. They are allowed to ship sperm and eggs to further captive breeding programs. Sometimes hybridization is the only option to preserve any part of the species. But when one zoo has too many of a particular endangered species and maybe not enough of another, they organize trades between zoos to better distribute the supply of what is essentially a good that cannot be legally bought or sold. The animals are explicitly NOT bought or sold between zoos and shouldn't end up in the hands of private individuals.

Selling the rights to hunt an endangered animal is not any different than selling the animal directly. A lawyer might argue that a hybrid of an endangered animal is not endangered. But, these are not ecological stewards and this is absolutely not about species preservation. This isn't even hunting. This is an international conspiracy to profit off of the bloodlust of the ruling class.

Isn't all meat production "an international conspiracy to profit off the bloodlust of the ruling class?" What about butchering double muscled bulls? They are rare hybrids, but not endangered.

No it's not.

Have any good vegan recipes that don't try to imitate meat or cheese?

Yeah, there's a lot of Indian vegan/vegetarian dishes that don't try to pretend to be meat. I make dal fairly regularly.

Male argali sheep can top 300 pounds with horns up to 5 feet long, according to officials

I am never going to Kyrgyzstan. I don't care if they're rare. No way is my obituary going to be about me getting pushed off a mountain by a five-foot sheep.

Ha, they wouldn’t get near you, these kinds of animals are super aware and are always trying to stay away from predators, keeping their distance.