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.

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

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.

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

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,

A Montana man was sentenced to six months in prison for crimes committed during his effort to create a giant sheep hybrid for captive hunting, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said Monday.