Eustice deserves sympathy as he works to control serious disease
The story of Geronimo, the alpaca put on death row by Defra following two positive bovine TB tests, and his owner Helen Macdonald, who threatens to film the euthanasia and put it on social media, is tragic. It is hard not to feel for George Eustice, the Secretary of State, who will take responsibility for the camelid’s death. Predictably, the BBC presenter Chris Packham has piled pressure on the Government to grant a reprieve, an astonishing act of partiality, but (yet another) one that will no doubt be excused on the grounds that, as a contractor, he is not employed directly by the BBC.
Mr Eustice’s job of dealing with the unfolding TB train crash has sometimes been undermined by No10, allegedly under influence from Carrie Johnson, who opposes badger culling.
As a farmer’s son, Mr Eustice knows that, in the absence of an efficacious vaccine, the slaughter has to be carried out. His department has already made statistically certain that the diagnosis is not in doubt. TB is a serious disease. As well as the economic consequences, it can have devastating effects on animals, though, like Covid, it can be asymptomatic, as it is for Geronimo.
More critically, it is also zoonotic, which is to say that it jumps species barriers, and can be fatal in humans. Ms Macdonald would no doubt accept the risk but there is nevertheless a small chance that she could contract
There has never been any substance to the animal rights trope that the culling policy is a heartless exercise
the disease herself from close contact with Geronimo. And to make an exception in the face of a Twitter storm, when so many farmers have had to make the same sacrifice, often after similar appeals for clemency, would make Mr Eustice’s position untenable.
Mr Eustice has spoken of his anguish at TB breakdowns on his own family’s farm. In reality, there has never been any substance to the animal rights trope that the culling policy is a heartless exercise designed to appease greedy farmers. On all farms, there are cows that are regarded as pets. And there is a special bond between a farmer and his herd, which only those who have owned cattle will understand. There have been farmer suicides linked to the stress caused by the loss of cattle that are not just their livelihood but often their first love.
If Mr Eustice deserves sympathy, his Government, and the Whitehall machine that serves it, do not. They have vacillated for too long, caving to the animal rights lobby on the one hand by cancelling badger culls and to farming interests on the other by ruling out preventing cattle movement out of infected areas. If Geronimo’s death strengthens their resolve to deal swiftly with bovine TB once and for all, he will not have died in vain.
Jamie Blackett is the author of Red Rag to a Bull, Rural Life in an Urban Age (Quiller)