Protesters to march on Defra against Geronimo death sentence

Protesters will be joined by alpacas in marching to Defra’s headquarters this afternoon (Monday) in a bid to save Geronimo from execution.

Animal rights protesters, joined by alpacas, will be marching on Defra’s Westminster office at 2pm before moving on to Downing Street.

High Court battle

As previously reported by Vet Times, RVN Helen Macdonald lost her four-year battle with Defra on 29 July after a High Court judgement found reasonable suspicion that Geronimo had bTB.

Ms Macdonald had become embroiled in a disagreement over testing regimes carried out on Geronimo that, she argues, are inaccurate and based on bad science.

Geronimo was originally set to be euthanised by 8 August, but has yet to be destroyed.

A Change.org petition calling on Defra and the prime minister to reverse the decision has reached nearly 100,000 signatures.

Protest

Responding to the public outcry over the case, Born Free Foundation’s British wildlife advocate Dominic Dyer took to Twitter to say: “I’m pleased to say that Geronimo the alpaca is still alive.

“Ms Macdonald was visited by police at her farm on Friday night and they are clearly preparing the ground to remove the animal.

“There is growing concern in Defra, and in Downing Street, that this is a PR disaster, and they’re not going to want to move on this animal while there is so much media scrutiny.

“We are going to make maximum use of this window and hold a protest at Defra’s headquarters in Smith Square on Monday at 2pm.

“We will have a small number of alpacas there. We will have vets there. And If all goes well, we hope to be walking to Downing Street.

“We hope we can turn this into a peaceful protest where we call for a significant change within the whole TB control system that helps farmers, helps alpaca owners and can bring an end to the cruel badger cull as well.”

‘Necessary endeavour’

Environment secretary George Eustice has defended the decision to euthanise Geronimo, describing it as an “arduous, but necessary endeavour” to cull animals that test positive for bTB.

Writing in The Mail on Sunday, he said: “Each week on average, we have to remove more than 500 cattle from herds due to infection in England alone. Behind every one of those cases is a farmer who has suffered loss and tragedy.

“Farmers understand that infected animals are a risk to the remainder of their herd, so while the loss of individual animals is always a tragedy, the farming communities have worked with our Government vets in this arduous, but necessary endeavour.”