Condemned alpaca’s owner appeals to PM
The owner of Geronimo the alpaca has urged Prime Minister Boris Johnson to speak to her to resolve the stand-off over the future of the animal.
Geronimo has twice tested positive for bovine tuberculosis but owner Helen Macdonald believes the tests are returning false positives.
The Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs has (Defra) has ordered the alpaca to be euthanised.
The destruction warrant is valid until September 4 and Macdonald wants the government to allow Geronimo to be tested for a third time or let him live to aid research into the disease.
She said: “We haven’t heard anything from Defra or anyone and we’re still asking for valid testing four years after they bungled the last one, or to keep Geronimo in isolation for research purposes, which is what we’ve been doing for four years.”
Macdonald, a veterinary nurse, said that if Defra officials did destroy Geronimo, the “senseless killing”
would take place “in front of a worldwide population”.
At her farm in Wickwar, South Gloucestershire, friends, family and supporters have joined her to protest against Geronimo’s impending fate.
As well as alpacas, badgers have been a victim of the fight against bovine TB, with mass culling employed to stop the spread since 2013, sparking a huge public backlash.
Last week, the government insisted all the evidence on Geronimo’s condition had been “looked at very carefully”. A
Defra spokesman said: “We are sympathetic to Ms Macdonald’s situation – just as we are with everyone with animals affected by this terrible disease.”