A 33-year-old Fairfield man was issued a pair of citations last week after he allegedly shot and killed a deer on Dollar Mountain within the city limits of Sun Valley.
Matthew R. Park faces a Sun Valley charge of illegally discharging a firearm within the city limits. He was also cited by an Idaho Department of Fish Game officer for allegedly possessing an untagged deer.
"We got a call on a cell phone from someone who was seeing this happen," said Sun Valley Police Chief Cameron Daggett.
Park was issued the citations at about 6 p.m. last Thursday, Oct. 19. He was stopped with a large buck in the back of his gray Dodge pickup truck by Blaine County sheriff's deputies about two miles north of Hailey on state Highway 75.
Daggett said the eyewitness earlier reported that he saw a man dragging a dead deer to a pickup, which was parked along Elkhorn Road in the Weyyakin area. The witness reportedly watched the man drag the deer off Dollar Mountain within the Sun Valley city limits.
Daggett said the witness followed the pickup and used his cell phone to stay in contact with authorities until sheriff's deputies made the stop.
Sun Valley police and Fish and Game Conservation Officer Lee Garwood were called to the scene.
"A citation was issued, allegedly, for an untagged deer," said Garwood.
According to the Fish and Game regional office in Jerome, the deer was apparently killed in a legal hunting area that overlaps with the city limits of Sun Valley.
Daggett said Park told officers that he didn't know he killed the buck within the city limits.
The incident was the second report of illegal hunting in Sun Valley this month. On Oct. 10 police were notified that a hunter was seen and three shots were fired on Dollar Mountain above the Elkhorn sewage treatment plant.
Daggett said officers investigated but didn't find a hunter. Instead, they found a wounded deer.
"It got up and started to run, but there was blood where it was laying," Daggett said. "It looked like it was probably a flesh wound, but whether it died later on, we don't know."
