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.
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.