A Montana rancher has been sentenced to six months in prison after cloning a "near threatened" sheep from Asia and then selling its offspring to shooting preserves, according to court documents.

Arthur ‘Jack’ Schubarth says he simply wanted ‘to make the best sheep I could for this sheep industry.’

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.

A Montana livestock ranch isn't where you'd expect to find cutting edge and highly illegal cloning operations.

Montana . An 81-year-old man from Montana was sentenced to six months in federal prison on Monday for illegally using tissue and testicles from large sheep hunted in Central Asia and the US to create hybrid sheep for captive trophy hunting in Texas and Minnesota.

Prosecutors said the Montanan illegally used tissue from a sheep from Central Asia and the testicles from a bighorn sheep to make large hybrids that he could sell at premium prices.

An 81-year-old man was sentenced to six months in prison for his yearslong effort to create giant hybrid sheep for captive hunting operations.

A rancher from Montana was sentenced to six months in prison on Monday for using parts from protected sheep to create giant sheep hybrids, aiming to sell the species to captive hunting facilities. For nearly a decade,