Montana

Montana man gets 6 months in prison for cloning giant sheep and breeding it

Published

1 year ago

September 30, 2024

Montana man gets 6 months in prison for cloning giant sheep and breeding it

GREAT FALLS, Mont. — 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.

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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.

Morris also fined Schubarth $20,000 and ordered him to make a $4,000 payment to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Schubarth will be allowed to self-report to a Bureau of Prisons medical facility.

“I will have to work the rest of my life to repair everything I’ve done,” Schubarth told the judge just before sentencing.

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.

The animal has been confiscated by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services and is being held in an accredited facility until it can be transferred to a zoo, said Richard Bare, a special agent with the wildlife service.

Sarah Brown, an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, had asked that Schubarth be sentenced to prison, saying his illegal breeding operation was widespread, involved other states and endangered the health of other wildlife. The crime involved forethought, was complex and involved many illegal acts, she said.

Schubarth owns Sun River Enterprises LLC, a 215-acre alternative livestock ranch, which buys, sells and breeds “alternative livestock” such as mountain sheep, mountain goats and ungulates, primarily for private hunting preserves, where people shoot captive trophy game animals for a fee, prosecutors said. He had been in the game farm business since 1987, Schubarth said.

Schubarth pleaded guilty in March to charges that he and five other people conspired to use tissue from a Marco Polo sheep illegally brought into the U.S. to clone that animal and then use the clone and its descendants to create a larger, hybrid species of sheep that would be more valuable for captive hunting operations.

Marco Polo sheep are the largest in the world, can weigh 300 pounds and have curled horns up to 5 feet long, court records said.

Schubarth sold semen from MMK along with hybrid sheep to three people in Texas, while a Minnesota resident brought 74 sheep to Schubarth’s ranch for them to be inseminated at various times during the conspiracy, court records said. Schubarth sold one direct offspring from MMK for $10,000 and other sheep with lesser MMK genetics for smaller amounts.

The total value of the animals involved was greater than $250,000 but less than $550,000, prosecutors said. Hybrid sheep were also sold to people in Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota and West Virginia, prosecutors said.

In October 2019, court records said, Schubarth paid a hunting guide $400 for the testicles of a trophy-sized Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep that had been harvested in Montana and then extracted and sold the semen, court records said.

Sheep breeds that are not allowed in Montana were brought into the state as part of the conspiracy, including 43 sheep from Texas, prosecutors said.

“You were so focused on getting around those rules you got off track,” Morris said.

Holden sought reduced restitution, saying Schubarth fed and cared for the hybrid sheep on his ranch until they could be slaughtered and the meat donated to a food bank. The remaining hybrid sheep with Marco Polo DNA on his ranch must be sent to slaughter by the end of the year with the meat also being donated, Morris said. Morris gave Schubarth until December 2025 to sell his Rocky Mountain bighorn hybrid sheep.

Schubarth will not be allowed to breed game stock during the three years he is on probation, Morris said.

The five co-conspirators were not named in court records, but Schubarth’s plea agreement requires him to cooperate fully with prosecutors and testify if called to do so. The case is still being investigated, Montana wildlife officials said.

Schubarth, in a letter attached to the sentencing memo, said he becomes extremely passionate about any project he takes on, including his “sheep project,” and is ashamed of his actions.

“I got my normal mindset clouded by my enthusiasm and looked for any grey area in the law to make the best sheep I could for this sheep industry,” he wrote. “My family has never been broke, but we are now.”

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.

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Montana

Apparent AI Glitch in Filing by Montana Public Defender, Recent Congressional Candidate

Published

3 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

Apparent AI Glitch in Filing by Montana Public Defender, Recent Congressional Candidate

Everyone makes mistakes, even experienced professionals; a good reminder for the rest of us to learn from those mistakes. The motion in State v. Stroup starts off well in its initial pages (no case law hallucinations), but is then followed by several pages of two other motions, which I don’t think the lawyer was planning to file, and which appear to have been AI-generated: It begins with the “Below is concise motion language you can drop into …” language quoted above.

Griffen Smith (Missoulian) reported on the story, and included the prosecutor’s motion to strike that filing, on the grounds that it violates a local rule (3(G)) requiring disclosure of the use of generative AI:

The document does not include a generative artificial intelligence disclosure as required. However, page 7 begins as follows: “Below is concise motion language you can drop into a ‘Motion to Admit Mental-Disease Evidence and for Related Instructions’ keyed to 45-6-204, 45-6-201, and 4614-102. Adjust headings/captions to your local practice.” Page 10 states “Below is a full motion you can paste into your pleading, then adjust names, dates, and styles to fit local practice.” These pages also include several apparent hyperlinks to “ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws,” “ppl-ai-fileupload.s3.amazonaws+1,” and others. The document includes what appears to be an attempt at a second case caption on page 12. It is not plausible on its face that any source other than generative AI would have created such language for a filed version of a brief….

There’s more in that filing, but here’s one passage:

While generative AI can be a useful tool for some purposes and may have greater application in the future, when used improperly, and without meaningful review, it can ultimately damage both the perception and the reality of the profession. One assumes that Mr. Stroup has had, or will at some point have, an opportunity to review the filing made on his behalf. What impression could a review of pgs. 12-19 leave upon a defendant who struggles with paranoia and delusional thinking? While AI could theoretically one day become a replacement for portions of staff of experienced attorneys, it is readily apparent that this day has not yet arrived.

The Missoulan article includes this response:

In a Wednesday interview, Office of Public Defender Division Administrator Brian Smith told the Missoulian the AI-generated language was inadvertently included in an unrelated filing. And he criticized the county attorney’s office for filing a “four-page diatribe about the dangers of AI” instead of working with the defense to correct her mistake.
“That’s not helping the client or the case,” Smith said, “and all you are doing is trying to throw a professional colleague under the bus.”

As I mentioned, the lawyer involved seems quite experienced, and ran for the Montana Public Service Commission in 2020 (getting nearly 48% of the vote) and for the House of Representatives in Montana’s first district in 2022 (getting over 46% of the vote) and in 2024 (getting over 44%). “Его пример другим наука,” Pushkin wrote in Eugene Onegin—”May his example profit others,” in the Falen translation.

Thanks to Matthew Monforton for the pointer.

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Montana

Your guide to local sports events, plus what’s on TV

Published

15 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

Your guide to local sports events, plus what’s on TV

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Montana

Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026

Published

1 day ago

March 1, 2026

Press Room

Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026

HELENA — You probably have goals and plans for 2026—the Montana Department of Agriculture does too.

“We’re really focusing on innovative agricultural practices,” Montana Department of Agriculture director Jillien Streit said.

It’s no secret that agriculture—farming and ranching—is not easy. There are long days, planning, monitoring crops and livestock, and other challenges beyond farmers’ and ranchers’ control.

(WATCH: Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026)

Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026

“We have very low commodity prices across the board,” Streit said. “We still have very high input prices across the board, and we have really high prices when it comes to our equipment, and so, it’s a really tough year.”

But innovation, including new practices, partnerships and technology use, can help navigate some of those challenges.

“We can’t make more time and we can’t make more land, so we need to start putting together innovative practices that help us maximize what our time and land can do,” Streit said.

Practices range from using technology like autonomous tractors and virtual fencing—allowing rangers to contain and move cattle right from their phones—to regenerative farming and ranching.

“It is bringing cattle back into farming operations to be able to work with cover cropping practices to invigorate the soil for new soil health benefits,” Streit said.

The Montana Department of Agriculture is working to help producers learn, share, and collaborate on new ideas to work in their operations.

The department will share stories of practices that work from farms and ranches across the state. Also, within the next year or so, Streit said the department is hoping to roll out technology to help producers collaborate.

“(It’s) providing a communication platform where people can get together and really help each other out by utilizing each other’s assets,” she said.

While not easy, agriculture is still one of Montana’s largest industries, and Streit said innovating and sharing ideas across the state can keep it going long into the future.

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