Arthur “Jack” Schubarth was charged in federal court on Feb. 5 for conspiracy and Lacey Act trafficking for an illegal sheep breeding operation in Vaughn.

Schubarth owns and operates a 215-acre game farm in Vaughn under the name Sun River Enterprises LLC.

The business “engaged in the purchase, sale and breeding of mountain sheep, mountain goats and other ungulates with a primary purpose of marketing and selling live animals and genetic material to captive hunting operations, also known as game ranches or shooting reserves,” according to court documents.

His family owns and operates Jack’s Pet Store in downtown Great Falls. That shop is not associated with this federal case.

Schubarth signed a plea deal in which he agrees to plead guilty in exchange for the government recommending a lower sentence.

A sentencing hearing has not been scheduled, but a proposed order from the prosecution suggested March 12.

The charges are felonies that carry a maximum of up to five years imprisonment, a fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss and a year of supervised release.

In the agreement, the government also recommends that Schubarth be required to make a donation of not more than a quarter of the criminal fine to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, a congressionally chartered nonprofit.

The ranch is bordered by state, private and federal lands in the vicinity of national forests and the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, where a variety of wildlife are native to the geographic area, including Rocky Mountain Big Horn Sheep, according to court documents.

The Lacey Act makes it unlawful to knowingly transport, sell, receive, acquire or purchase, in interstate commerce, any wildlife they knew was taken, possessed, transported or sold in violation of federal rules.

It also prohibits making or submitting false records or identification of wildlife for interstate or foreign commerce, according to court documents.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, details the protection level of wildlife and includes a list of species that may become endangered if trade of the species is not regulated with permits and quotas, according to court documents.

CITES is used in the U.S. through the Endangered Species Act.

To protect native wildlife and plant species in Montana, the state prohibited certain exotic species from being imported, possessed or sold in Montana, including Argali sheep, Transcaspian urial sheep and mouflon sheep.

According to court documents, from at least Jan. 25, 2013 to October 2022, Schubarth “knowingly combined, conspired, confederated and agreed” with others to sell and purchase argali sheep with a market value of more than $350, in violation of state and federal laws.

In the plea agreement, prosecutors state the value of the illegal sheep was more than $250,000 but less than $550,000.

Marco Polo argali sheep are large, regularly weighing more than 300 pounds, with unique long spiraling horns and are native to high elevations of the Pamir Mountains region that spans Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and China, according to court documents.

Argali sheep are listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and internationally protected under CITES. They’re commonly hunted for sport in Tajikistan, Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan and imports of argali trophies, parts, products and specimens into the U.S. are tightly regulated and require a CITES permit from the originating county and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Schubarth engaged a third party to create a cloned argali sheep from argali parts hunted in the wild in Kyrgyzstan and maintain the genetic line at a third party facility; he and others performed laparoscopic artificial insemination and other forms of artificial breeding to create larger more valuable lines of argali sheep at the Schubarth ranch and elsewhere; and used electronic communications to coordinate sale and transport of wildlife and wildlife parts and discuss false documentation to conceal the illegal wildlife, according to court documents.

According to the charging documents:

• round Jan. 25, 2013, an unnamed Montana resident entered the U.S. with biological tissue from an argali sheep hunted in Kyrgystan and did not declare the parts upon entry;
• shortly thereafter, Schubarth entered into a “cell storage agreement” to preserve that tissue;
• in October 2015, Schubarth entered into an “ovine cloning contract” to clone an unspecified number of argali sheep from the tissue and paid a $4,200 deposit;
• in November 2016, Schubarth received 165 cloned embryos at his ranch;
• in May 2017, a pure argali sheep male was born
• starting in 2018, Schubarth harvested semen from that sheep to artificially inseminate ewes to create hybrid offspring;
• in October 2018, Schubarth shipped 20 straws of the cloned sheep’s semen to a second unnamed person in Texas;
• in November 2018, a third unnamed person transported 26 prohibited species of sheep from Minnesota to Schubarth’s ranch in Vaughn to be artificially inseminated with semen from the first argali clone and the person issued a $600 check to Schubarth and transported some of those sheep back to Minnesota;
• in May 2019, the first unnamed Montana resident transported an offspring of the initial clone from Minnesota to Schubarth’s ranch;
• in November 2019, Schubarth shipped 37 staws of the clone’s semen to the second unnamed person in Texas, and 23 straws to a fourth unnamed person in Texas;
• in November 2019, the third unnamed person transported 48 prohibited sheep species of ewes from Minnesota to Schubarth’s ranch to be artificially inseminated by the first cloned sheep;
• in May 2020, Schubarth offered to sell an offspring of the clone to a fourth and fifth unnamed persons in Texas;
• in July 2020, he offered those two people eleven sheep that were mixed of the first clone and its offspring for $13,200 and $10,000; the fifth person that month obtained a Texas Animal Health Commission Certificate of Veterinary Inspection for the interstate export of 43 sheep falsely declared and New Mexico Dahl Sheep that were transported to the Schubarth ranch; around that time, the fifth person issued a $23,000 check to Schubarth for 12 offspring of the illegal sheep;
• the fifth person also obtained Montana Department of Livestock Certificate of Veterinary Inspection transferring the sheep to Texas labeling them as Bighorn and New Mexico domestic sheep that were transported to Texas;
• in November 2020, the third unnamed person transported at least two of the illegal offspring from Vaughn to Minnesota and in February 2021 purchased two falsely labeled sheep from Schubarth;
• in February 2021, Schubarth and the fifth person discussed the name for the hybrid argali they were creating at one point saying they couldn’t call it “black argali.”