Geronimo the doomed alpaca survives week one on death row

Geronimo the doomed Alpaca is celebrating a ‘significant milestone’ Friday after avoiding his Government-mandated slaughter for a whole week. 

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) now has just over three weeks to carry out the killing after owner Helen Macdonald, 50, lost a £50,000 High Court battle to save the animal.

Geronimo, who is in isolation on Ms Macdonald’s farm in Wickwar, south Gloucestershire, was sentenced to death after testing positive for bovine tuberculosis (bTB), but his owner has always insisted the results were false positives. 

A High Court judge disagreed and ruled that Geronimo must be put down within 30 days from August 5 – meaning Defra agents could arrive to execute Geronimo at any minute. 

Ms Macdonald said today: ‘This first week has been one of the toughest of my life but it feels like a significant milestone.

‘We just have to keep ploughing on for the next few weeks now.

‘Geronimo and I have gained incredible support but there’s more of this torment to come.’ 

It comes as an <a style="font-weight: bold;" class="class" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener" target="_blank" website petition demanding Geronimo be spared has gathered more than 124,000 signatures. 

There is now a live webcam on his pen for supporters to watch while 30 ‘alpaca angels’ have arrived at the farm vowing to stop any cull. 

Ms Macdonald added: ‘I don’t know what I’d have done without them.

‘I’ve barely slept and keep staring at the gate waiting for them to arrive.’ 

The high court ruling has spurred a host of celebrities to join the campaign, including actress Joanna Lumley and Boris Johnson’s father Stanley Johnson – although he said he had not phoned his son over the issue because he doesn’t wish to ‘invoke some privileged access mechanism’ to advance his opinion. 

Meanwhile supporters gathered to demonstrate outside Defra headquarters this week.

On Thursday, online casino and bingo site PlayOJO, and Alpaca-pals, protested outside Parliament with two fellow alpacas, Albert and Otis, from Woodbine Farm in Lutton.  

The black and white animals wore purple coats reading: ‘Save our friend Geronimo’ and ‘Fair TB testing’. 

But Defra has repeatedly refused to retest Geronimo for bTB arguing its test is accurate – despite the Daily Mail’s bombshell evidence of nine other camelids who were slaughtered following false positives for bTB.

Ms Macdonald said earlier this week: ‘We are just asking to have him tested with something appropriate. 

‘I get they have policy to follow but there are other ways, and they don’t have to kill him.’

The Prime Minister’s spokesman previously said: ‘The fact remains that Geronimo has sadly tested positive twice using a highly specific and reliable and validated test.’ 

Supporters hoping for backing from the Labour Party were left bitterly disappointed when leader Sir Keir Starmer backed Geronimo’s killing on Wednesday night. 

‘It’s a really sad situation and you can see why emotions are running really high,’ Sir Keir said.

‘It’s always tragic when it happens. I don’t think we can make an exception in this case. 

‘Of course it’s sad – it’s sad for farmers as well when they lose their animals but we have to keep TB under control.’ 

Several voters said they had cancelled their Labour Party membership over Sir Keir’s stance, with animal rights campaigner Dominic Dyer branding the response ‘absolutely disgraceful.’