An 81-year-old Montana has been sentenced to six months in federal prison and ordered to pay $24,000 in penalties for using tissue and testicles from large sheep hunted in Central Asia and the U.S. to illegally create hybrid sheep for captive trophy hunts in Texas and Minnesota.

An 81-year-old Montana man was sentenced Monday to six months in federal prison for illegally using tissue and testicles from large sheep hunted in Central Asia and the U.S. to create hybrid sheep for captive trophy hunting in Texas and Minnesota.

U.S. District Court Judge Brian Morris said he struggled to come up with a sentence for Arthur “Jack” Schubarth of Vaughn, Montana. He said he weighed Schubarth’s age and lack of a criminal record with a sentence that would deter anyone else from trying to “change the genetic makeup of the creatures” on the earth.

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Schubarth’s attorney, Jason Holden, said cloning the giant Marco Polo sheep hunted in Kyrgyzstan in 2013 has ruined his client’s “life, reputation and family.”

“I think this has broken him,” Holden said.

Holden, in seeking a probationary sentence, argued that Schubarth was a hard-working man who has always cared for animals and did something that no one else could have done in cloning the giant sheep, which he named Montana Mountain King or MMK.

  • Machinist@lemmy.worldEnglish
    21·
    2 months ago

    As a hunter: canned hunts are disgusting. I almost feel like the sentence is too light, even if he is 81 and a first time offender.

    High fence canned hunting operations have absolutely increased the spread of chronic wasting disease in cervids.

    Teddy Rossevelt’s refusal to take part in a canned hunt led to the Teddy Bear. That same attitude led to the creation of the National Parks system in the US.

    • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
      41·
      2 months ago

      True, but on the other hand, this would have been based on a protected species and could reduce the demand of wild poaching.