In September, a man from Montana was sentenced to six months in prison for trafficking a clone of the near threatened Marco Polo argali sheep. Court documents state that Arthur Schubarth brought body parts of the sheep into the US from Kyrgyzstan and used them to create a cloned sheep named Montana Mountain King (MMK). He then sold MMK’s semen to impregnate ewes and sold the offspring to individuals involved in big game hunting.
This is only the second known case of an American being prosecuted for a wildlife crime involving animal cloning. The first case, in 2011, involved the unlawful purchase and transportation of deer for the purpose of cloning. In Schubarth’s case, it is estimated that there may be dozens of MMK’s descendants at large in the US, as they are considered contraband in the plea agreements signed by those who bought sheep from Schubarth or transported ewes to his ranch.
According to legal documents, at least several dozen sheep may have carried MMK’s offspring, with each potentially having multiple lambs. One of MMK’s offspring was transported from Minnesota to Schubarth’s ranch in Montana in 2019, and in 2020, Schubarth sold 11 of MMK’s grandchildren and one of his children to individuals in South Dakota and Montana.
While MMK himself has been accounted for and is now housed at a zoo in New York, the fate of the other sheep is uncertain. The US Fish and Wildlife Service declined to comment on the matter. This case highlights the potential consequences of wildlife trafficking and the need for stricter regulations to protect endangered species.
