Geronimo will not escape his sad fate.
British justice rejected Wednesday the last recourse of a breeder to save this alpaca tested positive for bovine tuberculosis, thus condemning to slaughter this camelid whose fate unleashed passions in the United Kingdom.
When imported from its native New Zealand four years ago, the black-coated alpaca underwent four skin tests that came back negative for bovine tuberculosis.
But in the UK, he then underwent two blood tests and a skin test which all came back positive, leading authorities to order the animal to be slaughtered.
"It goes against everything I know, believe and am signed up to”
The owner of Geronimo the alpaca says she refuses to destroy her beloved pet today https://t.co/plMLqI5w5k
- Evening Standard (@standardnews) August 19, 2021
A demonstration in front of the home of Boris Johnson
Her owner, Helen Macdonald, was asking for a new test, denouncing false positives, which she had been denied in early August by the High Court in London.
Seized of an urgent request to suspend the mandate of slaughter of the animal, the judge Mary Stacey estimated Wednesday that there was "no chance" that its owner succeeds in reopening the file, thus condemning the alpaca .
"Compassionate for the situation" of Helen Macdonald, the health authorities present at the court specified that Geronimo would not be shot the same evening, leaving his owner to take care of his arrangements.
The fate of the alpaca had caused a stir in the United Kingdom, going so far as to mobilize last week a demonstration outside the home of Prime Minister Boris Johnson to demand that he be spared.
More than 130,000 people have signed a petition demanding to save Geronimo, which also received public support from Stanley Johnson, the father of the head of government.
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