Geronimo’s owner says she has ‘new hope’ alpaca will be saved from execution

The owner of an alpaca sentenced to death by the government over claims it has bovine TB (BTB) has said that she has “new hope” that the animal’s life will be spared.

Helen Macdonald said she has been able to sleep properly for the first time since the warrant had been granted to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to kill Geronimo the alpaca.

The alpaca farmer and veterinary nurse lost a High Court battle against Defra at the end of July, which triggered a 30-day window for Defra to euthanise Geronimo starting from 5 August.

Geronimo has been ordered to be slaughtered after twice testing positive in the UK for BTB – but Ms MacDonald, BTB experts, animal welfare campaigners, and alpaca farmers have disputed the accuracy of the Enferplex test.

They have said that the tuberculin primer injected into the skin before the test may have induced false positives.

Ms Macdonald had brought Geronimo to the UK from New Zealand in 2017. He had tested negative for BTB four times in New Zealand but then twice tested positive in England.

The campaigners have called on environment secretary George Eustice to re-test Geronimo with a test that they said would be more accurate.

Defra has insisted that its tests for BTB are accurate and claims that the chance of a false positive with an Enferplex test, that uses a tuberculin primer to make the test more sensitive, is 0.34 per cent.

But, on Friday, the High Court issued a 72-hour injunction that is to expire at 4pm on Monday. Geronimo is safe from Defra-contracted shooters until at least then.

Ms Macdonald said that the 72-hour injunction has given her “new hope”, and that it is a welcome break to “recharge everyone’s batteries for the fight ahead.”

The court has also agreed to accept a judicial review application over Defra’s warrant to kill, based on Defra being accused of “material non-disclosure” of evidence.

The evidence relates to information of other animals, including alpacas, having been put down under Defra’s orders but then testing negative for BTB post-mortem.

Ms Macdonald said: “Would the warrant had still been issued if people had known that?”

Her lawyers have recently petitioned Mr Eustice asking him to spare Geronimo for research purposes.

They have argued that powers included in the Animal Health Act 1981 would allow the alpaca to live if he is handed over to the authorities for scientific research.

Ms Macdonald told Farmers Weekly: “There is a piece of legislation that allows an animal to be isolated for research. We asked George Eustice to do this at the end of 2018 and he flatly refused.

“Lawyers have written to Mr Eustice to ask him to reconsider, but we have not heard anything back yet.”