The Payson Roundup / Elk was wasted

Archive for Tuesday, December 29, 2009

December 29, 2009

Editor:

On the evening of Dec. 19, I was returning home to Star Valley and saw that an elk and auto had a collision across from the rock quarry on Highway 260. There was a tow truck and four Payson patrol cars at the scene. I stopped and asked the tow truck driver if the elk had been claimed by anyone.

The driver of the tow truck told me that it had, so I left the scene and continued home. The next morning, Dec. 20, the elk was still lying on the ground.

Not that I wanted the elk so much, as I had already harvested an elk for the hunting season, but to be lied to by an official at an accident scene is just wrong.

This meat could have fed many people in the Rim area or anyone could have been issued a big game salvage ticket by Payson’s police officers or as the Arizona Highway Patrol did in August of 2006, when an elk ran into my vehicle in the same area.

I guess I should have asked a Payson police officer at the scene, instead of a tow truck driver.

Ryan Kollenborn