The deer, both does, got into Red Butte Garden a couple of weeks ago, probably when a construction worker or someone else not affiliated with the garden left a gate open.

That neglectful act undid all the protection of more than a mile of eight- to 10-foot-high fencing and electronic gates installed during the past two years to keep deer out of the 100-acre compound, Greg Lee, Red Butte Garden director, said Wednesday.

"The fence works fine. The problem is if someone leaves the gate open," Lee said.

A deer literally can eat a ton of plants in a year, and because they are "dessert feeders" that prefer young buds and flowers, they are destroying valuable vegetation at the nonprofit botanical and ecological center sponsored by the University of Utah.

"You can't operate a meaningful display garden with deer in it," Lee said.

Deer have managed to get into Red Butte, which is within natural deer habitat, for years. Garden workers have tried to run them off, but about five years ago, a "skirmish line" approach to herd deer to an exit went awry when a spooked animal jumped over a staffer, Lee said.

"When I heard that, I said, 'No more,' " said Lee, who ran a nature center in Minnesota before taking the Red Butte job five years ago.

"What if a hoof had slashed the person? You don't know how a wild animal will react," he said. "If the deer get scared and run, or if it's a male in rutting season, they will be more aggressive."

Recently, a Red Butte worker was injured while trying to chase off a deer, only to have the animal turn around and land a head-butt. The worker breached policy, Lee said.

"We do not try to physically shoo them off the property," he said. "We don't remove them ourselves."

That's why the Division of Wildlife is involved.

"They've asked us to remove the deer," DWR enforcement Lt. Scott White said.

But Tom Becker, a regional DWR biologist, doubts everyone will be happy with the outcome.

"[Deer] will eat a lot of the most expensive plants. I understand Red Butte's position," Becker said. "It would be a nice win to be able to go in and drug them. But the odds are fifty-fifty. We don't transplant deer in this state. We basically would put them right outside the gate, and the first chance they had, they'd be back in."

Deer are nearly impossible to catch in such a large, brushy area, Becker said. While they can be tranquilized with a dart, the drug works slowly, giving the deer plenty of time to run off and hide. It's possible the animal would sleep through the drug's effects, then wake up with the barbed dart still embedded.

Becker said there are tranquilizing darts that allow radio tracking, but they are expensive. "I've heard they don't work very well, but it's one of the things I'm going to propose, " he said.

Sometimes when deer are found in someone's backyard, DWR will use a net to capture them. Becker said a DWR conservation officer told him that would be impossible in Red Butte Garden.

In the heat, deer can die just from running away, he said. Their normal body temperature is around 104 degrees Fahrenheit; at 106 degrees, they are likely to collapse.

Becker is looking into whether faster-acting tranquilizers used on elk and moose would work on deer. But while those drugs come on in 90 seconds, that's still plenty of time for a deer to bolt and hide. If the animal can't be found quickly, it will die, because the drug needs to be reversed.

If drugs are used and the animal dies, "it goes to the landfill. It would be a total loss," he said.

If DWR officers shoot the deer, they can distribute the venison to people in need. "We don't waste the meat," Becker said.