Calls grow to test and save alpaca Geronimo

Defra faces calls to confirm whether Geronimo truly is a public health risk after protest march in London

Geronimo, the condemned alpaca, should be given a pioneering new test which will “almost certainly” show it does not have bovine tuberculosis, its supporters claim. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is facing calls to confirm if Geronimo is a public health risk by agreeing to test for the presence of bacteria which cause the disease. Yesterday, owner Helen Macdonald said she would not “help them execute my perfectly healthy animal”.

GERONIMO, the condemned alpaca, should be given a pioneering new test that will “almost certainly” show it does not have bovine tuberculosis, its supporters have claimed.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is facing calls to confirm whether Geronimo truly is a public health risk by agreeing to test for the presence of the bacteria that cause the disease.

A nervous wait was yesterday taking place at the alpaca’s home on a farm in Gloucestershire, where it is expected that a team could soon be arriving to euthanise it. Helen Macdonald, Geronimo’s owner, has insisted her animal is healthy and questioned the reliability of two tests that returned positive results for bovine tuberculosis (BTB).

The High Court, however, rejected her appeal to have Geronimo retested, giving Defra until Sept 4 to slaughter the animal legally.

Friends, family and supporters have joined Ms Macdonald at her farm in Wickwar, near Bristol, to form what she previously described as a “human shield” around the alpaca, which she imported from New Zealand. Yesterday, the veterinary nurse clarified that she was “not going to break the law” by trying to stop the killing, but said she would not “help them execute my perfectly healthy animal”.

Ms Macdonald believes the two previous tests on Geronimo produced false positives, because tuberculin given to it for past skin tests wrongly indicated it possessed BTB antibodies.

Dr Iain Mcgill, a veterinary scientist who has been reviewing Geronimo’s case for several years, said a new test, currently

Below, a protester takes part in a march in London to try to save Geronimo. Right, Helen Macdonald holds on to the animal at her farm undergoing trials in the UK, could provide a more accurate answer.

The Actiphage test, developed by PBD Biotech, opens cells to release DNA that is then recovered and analysed to determine whether there are live BTB bacteria present. PBD Biotech says on its website that the test can be completed within a matter of hours.

It is illegal to test an animal without permission, meaning Ms Macdonald cannot pursue the new form of analysis without the authorisation of Defra.

Dr Mcgill told The Daily Telegraph it would be “very unlikely” Geronimo would still be alive if it actually had BTB, as it has shown no symptoms since it first tested positive in 2017 and alpacas “usually only take months to die”. The Government disputes this claim.

Dr Mcgill accused Defra of trying to “kill their way out of trouble”, as the Actiphage test would likely undermine the “Edwardian” methods used for testing BTB in cows – a separate test from the one used on Geronimo in the UK – by finding “a lot more positive animals”.

“They’re worried if they use it on Geronimo, it is almost certainly going to be negative and then it’s very embarrassing for them that they’ve tried to kill him,” he said. “Most importantly, their whole BTB policy is based on a skin test, which is a kind of Edwardian technology that they’ve been relying on for years, but it’s actually only picking up 50 per cent of infected cows.”

Dr Mcgill cited two academic papers published in 2018 in Preventive Veterinary Medicine and The Veterinary Journal which indicated the sensitivity of the tests used to screen cattle was around 50 per cent.

Dozens of campaigners marched on Downing Street yesterday to protest against the planned killing, while a petition calling for Geronimo to be saved passed 100,000 signatures.

Defra yesterday published a 785word blog to counter what it described as “misleading” coverage.