Police have captured a deer that was loose in downtown Toronto on Tuesday morning.
The deer had been sitting in a garden near Bay Street and University Avenue for several hours before police moved in to tranquilize and move the animal.
Officers also used a Taser on the deer, a move that drew an outcry on social networking website Twitter that started just moments after the weapon was fired.
The two to three-year-old female deer is being moved by Toronto Animal Services and is expected to be alright. It will be inspected by a veterinarian and then released into an undisclosed conservation area, says Const. Tony Vella.
Police and animal control officers kept watch on the wayward deer for most of the morning after it wandered into the downtown core sometime before rush hour.
Before being shot with the tranquilizer dart, it had been lying in bushes beside a building about two metres from the sidewalk. It had previously been spotted near Union Station at Bay and Front Streets.
Vet Dr. Graham Crawshaw from the Toronto Zoo says the deer has been released back into the “wild” at the Leslie Street Spit, near Tommy Thompson Park.
He says they did veterinary check, and the deer appeared to be fine and she was groggy when she left.
"She was released one hour after she was captured," he says.
