https://www.thetimes.com/world...-mutations-7vl6n3ptl

Rise of exotic animal hunting fuels fears of Jurassic Park-style mutations

A rancher in Montana was jailed for creating giant sheep hybrids, dubbed Frankensheep. Such breeding risks crossing ethical boundaries, experts say

Charlotte McDonald-Gibson
Tuesday October 15 2024, 8.30pm BST, The Times

One by one, the animals trot into a gated enclosure shepherded by a man in a wide cowboy hat. Zebras, wildebeest, kangaroos and endangered oryx skitter around for a small audience, under the glassy gaze of a few of their stuffed predecessors mounted near by.

But this is no private zoo — it is an auction at one of the most storied ranches in Texas, founded in 1880 and once home to thousands of Texas longhorn cattle. Today, like many similar ranches, the YO Ranch Headquarters has transitioned to the Lone Star state’s increasingly lucrative livestock niche: the trade and hunting of exotic animals.

In Texas and a handful of other states, hunters have their pick of thousands of ranches where for tens of thousands of dollars they can “harvest” everything from an emu to a water buffalo.

But the rapacious appetite for ever-more exotic creatures to kill has caused some breeders to step over the line, shining a spotlight on this booming yet secretive industry.

Last month, an 81-year-old rancher in Montana was jailed for six months for cloning the endangered Marco Polo argali sheep of central Asia and creating giant hybrids using the testicles of Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep.


Dubbed “Frankensheep” by American media, Arthur Schubarth’s goal was “to create a larger and more valuable species of sheep to sell to captive hunting facilities, primarily in Texas”, according to the US Department of Justice.

David Anderson, a professor at the Texas A&M University who has studied the exotic animal trade, said many of the ranches were catering to a small group of the super wealthy, who were looking for unique hunts without having to travel the world.

“We do have people that want to go trophy hunting, and they may have a lot more money than time, and so they’re going to spend a lot more money [and] they’re going to go to these ranches that are specialising in some of these species,” he said.

While people working in the exotic animal business say their breeding programmes help preserve threatened and endangered species, animal welfare groups believe they are driven by financial motives to cross ethical boundaries.

“These animals are being selectively bred through artificial insemination, electro-ejaculation, to have the most impressive antlers, the most impressive horns, because then those canned hunts can charge more,” said Samantha Hagio, director of wildlife protection at the Humane Society of the United States.


Laws around captive hunts and the breeding and hunting of non-native species vary from state to state, with 27 states having complete or partial bans on captive hunts. But where they are allowed, the industry is thriving.

Anderson’s study from 2007 estimated that the exotic wildlife industry across the US generated $1.3 billion a year, and it has grown exponentially since then. The study identified 3,750 exotic animal operations across the US. A recent figure by one exotic wildlife business, Wildlife Partners, estimates that there are more than 5,500 exotic ranches in Texas alone.

These include the YO Ranch Headquarters, where a guest can pay $40,000 to kill a bongo (a type of antelope native to sub-Saharan Africa), or $10,000 for a zebra. Similar operations include OX Ranch, where a transcaspian urial can go for $20,000. Emus can be hunted for under $1,000.

The Times contacted a number of exotic animal ranches in Texas for comment, but none responded. One exotic auction house said they did not permit journalists to attend sales.


The YO Ranch Headquarters did not respond to requests to attend their auction on October 5, nor to questions about the sale and how they ensured the welfare of the animals. A live stream showed about 230 lots selling for a total of about $480,000. The most expensive sale was a springbok for $14,500.



The sums exotic animals can fetch are attractive to ranchers struggling with rising costs for feed, fertiliser and fuel. Anderson said smaller-scale cattle or sheep ranching was rarely profitable, meaning ranchers sought out other revenue streams.

Schubarth, the Montana rancher, described his path to exotic animal breeding in a letter to the judge before his sentencing on September 30. He said he was an exotic bird breeder and pet shop owner who transitioned to “alternative livestock” from breeding elk and deer in the 1980s.

But in 2013, Schubarth illegally procured and smuggled tissue from the Marco Polo sheep — a protected species — from Kyrgyzstan to the US. Court documents show he sent the genetic material to a cloning facility and raised a purebred Marco Polo sheep from a cloned embryo, which he called Montana mountain king.


He then sold both the semen of the Montana mountain king and its offspring to unidentified individuals, most of whom were based in Texas, for values of up to $10,000. He also created hybrids using DNA from illegally acquired testicles of the Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep.

“I got my normal mindset clouded by my enthusiasm and looked for any grey area in the law to make the best sheep I could,” Schubarth wrote in the letter.



A sentencing memorandum remarked that the hybrid sheep was “an extraordinary animal” whose creation should have been left “to the imagination of Michael Crichton” — a reference to the author’s Jurassic Park novels, in which dinosaurs are brought back to life from DNA.

For opponents of exotic wildlife hunting, the Jurassic Park analogy is apt: the animals are kept behind high fences in a highly managed environment that bears no resemblance to a “fair hunt” in the wild.

“They can make the hunt as easy or as difficult as the customer wants, so if the customer wants to pretend that it is an actual hunt and there is more of a chase, they know how to do that,” Hagio said. “If the customer says, I’ve only got a few hours and I want to kill a zebra, they can make that happen too. It’s all a business.”


While the Montana mountain king is an extreme example, another sector in which animals are selectively bred for characteristics attractive to hunters is the whitetail deer industry. Hunters pay tens of thousands of dollars for creatures with the largest antlers.

“They’re breeding what some in the industry have called frankendeer — the antlers are so grotesque and so large that the deer can literally barely hold their heads up,” Hagio said.



The North American Deer Farmers Association did not respond to a request for comment.

Ken Yancey, the executive director of the Exotic Wildlife Association, which represents exotic animal owners and breeders across the US, called the case of the Montana mountain king “unusual”.

“Just like in the cattle industry or with dogs, you breed for particular traits and that sort of thing, but not to change the make-up of the animal,” he said.

He said that most exotic ranchers entered the trade “because they love those animals and want to be engaged with them”, and said they had a role to play in conservation, given that many of the animals hunted on exotic ranches were endangered in the wild.


“Some of these animals that are in significant numbers in Texas or Florida and other places are virtually extinct in their native habitat, and so we have an inventory of animals that — at the right time — could be reintroduced into their native habitat,” he said.

The Montana mountain king, however, is not destined to return to the wilds of central Asia. It has been confiscated by the Fish and Wildlife Service and will head to a preserve.

Anderson said it was crucial that any genetically engineered or non-native species were kept away from natural habitats where they could introduce disease or compete with native animals. And he urged breeders to heed the lesson from Jurassic Park.

“There’s always a hole in the fence,” he warned.

Hunt T-Rexs My 500 Jeff is ready to go!

quote:

Originally posted by chuck375:
Hunt T-Rexs My 500 Jeff is ready to go!

may shoot them in the knee joint they just fall over.

Then one could take their time and put in the finisher

This whole focus is lost on the idiot animal rights people! Is an animal different from an animal? You want a nice juicy steak on your plate or horns on the wall? Does how it get there really matter? What does really matter is trying to survive and keep you land! If someone has money and is willing to pay for goods or services someone will oblige! Lines in the sand are just lines in the sand. Which side you are on depends who is looking from where! I see raising exotics no different than raising cows, chickens, goats, sheep or turkeys. Look at a thankgiving turkey and a wild one, frankenturkey? As one anti said about exotics that are extinct in their home place being hunted in Texas ,"They should all die rather than be hunted!" How does that make sense?

I herd some TX ranches have gaur but can’t hunt them legally
Is that true?

quote:

I herd some TX ranches have gaur but can’t hunt them legally
Is that true?

Quite a few ranches in Texas offer Gaur hunts, these are hybrid Gaur and legal to hunt. Pure Gaur hunting not allowed by USFWS. Hunts aren’t cheap.

What about all the hundreds of cattle that have been crossbred from Longhorns and European cattle, some as much as 4 or 5 times crossed back to original pure bred registered herds such as Angus, Brangus and Brahman to put better meat on your table..

I see this exotic thing as another liberal farce by over reacting idiots with a cause..

If one knows anything about cross breeding they know it can go right back to the original animal in a couple of generations..

quote:

I see this exotic thing as another liberal farce by over reacting idiots with a cause

I agree