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

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


BILLINGS, Montana (AP) — 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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The embryos were later implanted in a ewe, resulting in a pure Marco Polo argali sheep that Schubert named “Montana Mountain King,” the documents show. Semen from Montana Mountain King was used to artificially impregnate other ewes to create a larger and more valuable species of sheep, including one offspring that he reached an agreement to sell to two people in Texas for $10,000, according to the documents.

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.

A person who was not named in court documents shipped 74 ewes of a prohibited sheep species from Minnesota to Schubarth’s ranch to be artificially inseminated with Montana Mountain King semen, the documents show. Offspring that had only a portion of the central Asian sheep’s genetics sold for lesser amounts.

In 2019, Schubarth paid $400 to a hunting guide for testicles from a trophy-sized Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep killed in Montana. Schubarth extracted semen from bighorn sheep testicles and used it to breed large bighorn sheep and sheep crossbred with the argali species, the documents show.

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Todd Kim described Schubarth’s actions as “an audacious scheme to create massive hybrid sheep species to be sold and hunted as trophies.” Kim said the defendant violated the Lacey Act that restricts wildlife trafficking and prohibits the sale of falsely labeled wildlife.

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Schubarth said when reached by telephone on Wednesday that his attorney had advised him not to talk about the case.

“I would love to talk about it but can’t do it now,” he said. His attorney, Jason Holden, did not immediately respond to telephone messages seeking comment.

Authorities agreed under the terms of a plea deal not to pursue further charges against the defendant pending his cooperation in the government’s ongoing investigation in the wildlife trafficking case.

Montana Mountain King is in the custody of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, according to Department of Justice spokesperson Matthew Nies. As part of the plea deal, Schubert agreed to quarantine any other sheep containing Marco Polo argali genetics and any bighorn sheep that were harvested from the wild.

The deal also allows federal wildlife officials to inspect and, if needed, neuter the animals.

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Captive animal facilities where game species can be raised and hunted were banned in Montana under a 2000 ballot initiative. But they remain legal in some other states.

Schubarth’s 215-acre ranch is state-licensed as an alternative livestock facility, said Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesperson Greg Lemon. It was grandfathered in when the 2000 ballot initiative passed and has continued to operate, although hunting is prohibited, Lemon said.

Sentencing for Schubarth is set for July 11 before U.S. District Judge Brian Morris.

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Montana Lottery Mega Millions, Big Sky Bonus results for June 23, 2026

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The Montana Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.

Here’s a look at June 23, 2026, results for each game:

Winning Mega Millions numbers from June 23 drawing

48-51-60-63-66, Mega Ball: 20

Check Mega Millions payouts and previous drawings here.

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Winning Big Sky Bonus numbers from June 23 drawing

06-21-22-31, Bonus: 13

Check Big Sky Bonus payouts and previous drawings here.

Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results

When are the Montana Lottery drawings held?

  • Powerball: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
  • Mega Millions: 9 p.m. MT on Tuesday and Friday.
  • Lucky For Life: 8:38 p.m. MT daily.
  • Lotto America: 9 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
  • Big Sky Bonus: 7:30 p.m. MT daily.
  • Powerball Double Play: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
  • Montana Cash: 8 p.m. MT on Wednesday and Saturday.
  • Millionaire for Life: 9:15 p.m. MT daily.

Missed a draw? Peek at the past week’s winning numbers.

This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Great Falls Tribune editor. You can send feedback using this form.



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Man Driving Giant Banana Gets Pulled Over in Montana

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Man Driving Giant Banana Gets Pulled Over in Montana


We cover lots of hard news here at The Drive. Y’know, the stuff that keeps you updated on the automotive industry and enthusiast scene. Other times, we don’t. Other times, we write silly car-related stuff because it’s fun. This is one of those times. A giant banana recently got pulled over in Montana, and as the Cowboy State Daily put it, it wasn’t its first time.

According to the Montana State Police, the giant banana car and its driver, Steve Braithwaite, were pulled over near Billings because part of the license plate was blocked. He did not receive a ticket. Also, the plate reads “SPLIT.”

“We’ve stopped speeders, distracted drivers, and even a few unusual vehicles… but this one definitely stands out.
The Big Banana Car was stopped cruising near Billings today. While it may be apPEALing, traffic laws still apply to fruit. 😎 🍌
Safe travels, Montana,” said the Montana State Police’s Facebook page.

According to the report, Braithwaite has been pulled over hundreds of times over the decade he’s been driving his banana car across the country. In fact, he believes that during the first few years he had the thing, he was one of the most frequently pulled-over men in America.

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“Driving around in a banana and having all these people, all these smiles and waves, affects me. It actually does something fantastic,” he told the outlet.

He even claims to have been pulled over once for “peeling out,” which was, of course, a joke.

Another report claims that Braithwaite began working on the fiberglass banana in 2008 and finished it in 2011. It’s based on a 1993 Ford F-150 and is a bout 23 feet from tip to tip.

Keep on keepin’ on, Steve.

Got a tip? Email us at tips@thedrive.com

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As deputy editor, Jerry draws on a decade of industry experience and a lifelong passion for motorsports to guide The Drive’s short- and long-term coverage.




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The Latest ‘Sustained Yield’ Scam Will Devastate Montana’s National Forests

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The Latest ‘Sustained Yield’ Scam Will Devastate Montana’s National Forests


Log landing, western Montana. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

Way back in 1995 Bob Brown, the Republican president of the Montana Senate, called me into his office.

He had co-sponsored a bill with a pro-logging Missoula Democrat to establish a “sustained yield” level of logging on Montana’s state trust lands – and he was worried it wasn’t working out the way he hoped.

Bob was right to be worried then and Montanans are right to be worried now because Trump’s Forest Service Chief and former timber industry lobbyist Tom Schultz, has just unleashed the “sustained yield” scam on Montana’s National Forests.

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To appreciate Brown’s concerns, it’s important to understand that the 1995 Montana legislature had two-thirds Republican majorities in the House and Senate and Republican Marc Racicot in the Governor’s Office.

Those majorities put Montana’s environment in the cross-hairs with a raft of industry-friendly deregulatory bills.  That included the timber industry, which was losing the “timber wars” in large part because Plum Creek Timber, one of the largest private forest landowners in the West, had decided to “liquidate” its “timber assets” – also known as “forests.”

That decision resulted in massive clearcuts since there were virtually no regulations on logging private land.  Plum Creek scalped the forests of northwest Montana, including the lands around Bob’s home in Whitefish, leaving barren, knapweed infested stumpfields that remain to this day. His goal was to protect the lands around the trout streams he’d fished growing up and hoped the bill would do that.

It was the closing weeks of the session and Bob wanted to know if it was possible to reduce the environmental impacts of his bill since it had been heavily amended to favor extraction, not “sustained yield.”  My advice was to let the bill die because he didn’t have the votes to remove the amendments the timber industry lobbyists stuck on the bill.  But he didn’t take that advice, the bill passed, and the logging level for Montana’s state forests was set at 52 to 55 million board feet per year.

Two years later, Tom Schultz went to work for Montana’s Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, heading the trust lands timber division and earning the sobriquet “Chainsaw Tom” for his pro-logging zeal.  Like the stumpfields, his dedication to the timber industry remains to this day – only now he’s in charge of the United States Forest Service and bringing chainsaws to millions of acres of our remaining intact forests.

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If you believe that “sustained yield” is supposed to be a carefully calculated determination of how many millions of board feet of timber can be logged every year on a sustainable basis that means limiting logging to the pace at which the forests can regrow – regardless of the demands of the rapacious timber industry.

In the “old days” loggers liked to refer to forests as “100 year gardens.”  But of course forests aren’t gardens, they’re complex ecosystems – and the timber industry doesn’t wait a century for forests to regrow.

It’s unlikely that quaint misnomer is even applicable in today’s climate with hotter, longer summers, minimal snowpack, and extreme drought.  Yet, Montana’s “sustained yield” is now nearly 10 million board feet a year higher than when Brown’s bill passed, defying logic and science and justifying his concerns from 30 years ago.

“Chainsaw Tom” Schultz has now reappeared and demands that 350-500 million board feet of Montana’s national forests be logged over 10 years. Schultz’s timber industry lobbyist background offers a clue as to where that “sustainable yield” number came from — and the reason we will likely be left with nothing but stumpfields and knapweed from his “landscape scale” logging of our remaining intact forests.

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