The owner of Geronimo the alpaca has said she is still fighting for justice and desperate for closure two years on from the animal being killed by Defra after testing positive for bovine tuberculosis.
Helen Macdonald, a 52-year-old veterinary nurse, said she still seeking answers about how her eight-year-old alpaca was euthanised on 31 August 2021 after twice testing positive for the contagious bovine TB.
She has always maintained the testing was flawed and produced “false positives”, and a postmortem was unable to prove Geronimo had the disease.
Macdonald said she is still fighting on behalf of her beloved animal, and hopes her complaint against Defra, being reviewed by a parliamentary and health service ombudsman, will be upheld in a ruling later this year.
“So many people continue to be haunted by the shocking senselessness of Geronimo’s removal by Defra,” she said. “I continue to take enormous comfort from supporters everywhere, even if most days I cannot look at the beautiful tributes.”
Macdonald said she was angered by how Geronimo’s life came to an end, after a four-year battle to save him that saw the alpaca debated in the high court and in Downing Street.
Instead of being euthanised at his home, at Shepherds Close Farm in south Gloucestershire, Geronimo was led by rope into a horsebox and driven to an undisclosed location where he was destroyed.
“The avoidable cruelty displayed by vets and officials that day is something we will never understand or forgive,” she said. “They couldn’t even manage to kill him humanely. They demonstrated complete ignorance of camelids, their behaviours and their specific requirements, which was clear to see and hear for all those who witnessed it.
“Unforgivably, Defra have still not provided any evidence to support their version of events about when, where, and how Geronimo died. We continue to demand the truth along with the supporting evidence as proof.”
Macdonald said in the future she will be focusing on her Geronimo’s Law campaign to reform bovine TB policy.
“It is so important to us that no one else goes through what we are still enduring,” she said. “Current bTB policy has been shown to be not fit for purpose in controlling disease and we continue to demand a public inquiry in Geronimo’s name, leading to policy reform.”
She added that she has been left personally traumatised by her ordeal, and is still receiving therapy.
“I am slowly recovering my mental and physical health, but it’s been awful,” she said. “We have lots of support all over the world. It has given me a lot of comfort. But we never stop thinking about it and can not get closure until we know how he died.”
During the height of the campaign to save Geronimo’s life, more than 130,000 people signed a petition calling for him to be spared and celebrities including Chris Packham and Joanna Lumley offered their support. There was also a protest outside Downing Street.
A Defra spokesperson said: “Our sympathies remain with all those with animals affected by this terrible disease which devastates farmers’ livelihoods.
“It is important to remember that infected animals can spread the disease to both animals and people before displaying clinical signs, which is why we take action quickly to limit the risk of the disease spreading.”
