Alpaca’s owner in plea to PM over TB cull death

The owner of Geronimo, the alpaca who was culled last year, has called on new Prime Minister Liz Truss  to launch a review into Government TB policy.

Geronimo, who twice tested positive for bovine TB, was culled by vets on August 31 last year after his owner lost a lengthy legal battle to save him,  insisting the bovine tuberculosis tests previously carried out returned false positives.

The veterinary nurse argued the Enferplex test was fundamentally flawed and said Geronimo tested positive because he had repeatedly been primed with tuberculin – a purified protein derivative of bovine TB bacteria.

The alpaca was euthanised after police officers and staff from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) arrived at Ms Macdonald’s farm near Wickwar, South Gloucestershire.

At the time, Defra said initial post-mortem examination tests had found a “number of TB-like lesions” but further tests would be carried out.

Speaking on the anniversary of Geronimo’s death, Ms Macdonald said: “George Eustice (Environment Minister)  needs to go in the reshuffle.

“Boris Johnson could have stopped it and he is just as incompetent and complicit in all of this.

“Will the new prime minister have the courage and care enough to form an investigation or find out what been going on?

“There’s this whole policy of killing animals at the taxpayers’ expense without looking at the science and the lid has come off it and they need to be held to account.”

Ms Macdonald said she still did not know how exactly how the alpaca had died after being removed from her farm and loaded into a trailer and taken away.

“They still won’t tell me how he died, and they still won’t prove to me he walked out of that trailer.”