HELENA, Mont. (AP) — An 81-year-old Montana man faces sentencing in federal court Monday in Great Falls for illegally using tissue and testicles from large sheep hunted in Central Asia and the U.S. to illegally create hybrid sheep for captive trophy hunting in Texas and Minnesota.
However, the sentencing memorandum also congratulates Schubarth for successfully cloning the endangered sheep, which he named Montana Mountain King. The animal has been confiscated by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services.
“Jack did something no one else could, or has ever done,” the memo said. “On a ranch, in a barn in Montana, he created Montana Mountain King. MMK is an extraordinary animal, born of science, and from a man who, if he could re-write history, would have left the challenge of cloning a Marco Polo only to the imagination of Michael Crichton,” who is the author of the science fiction novel Jurassic Park.
He sounds like one of those “in another life” type of guys. I know a guy like this who is brilliant with chemistry and mycology. He has some some very interesting things in these pursuits, but he’s kind of failed to launch. He’s dropped out of college so many times, works odd jobs, often ends up back living with his parents, and often puts this energy into illicit pursuits. I’m sure he could start a legal fungi farm without a degree and make a tidy sum, especially with his knowledge of edible mushrooms and fungal soil amendments. Unfortunately, I fear he’s doomed to this life in-between, never fulfilled and always imagining what could have been.