Geronimo

[FleasInMyKnees]

Was it really necessary for all those police and officials to go in and round him up, trapping him in his shed and leading him out with a rope. Why couldn't a vet have dealt with this, sedated him, put him to sleep quietly without all those people scaring the daylights out of him. I understand the police might have been expecting protestors but there was no welfare shown to this poor animal.

Such a grotesque situation, killing an animal to "protect" other animals so that we can kill them.

@DumbestBlonde

I have been avoiding this news for a week or two but The Guardian caught me out... Call me (too) sensitive but I have just found it so upsetting. He would have been in hiding - forever - if he was mine.

I would do the exact same thing. Poor animal.

She should have let the poor thing go peacefully by his vet but the officials behaved disgracefully too.

I'm fucking sick and tired of bloody farmers being prioritised at every turn and at the expense of badgers, birds of prey, other creatures and habitats just to "protect" animals that we shouldn't be eating anyway.

What a bloody lot of fuss and lawsuits over a sick animal. Surely having animals put down is an unpleasant but normal part of being a farmer/horse trainer/dog owner/zoo keeper/insert anyone who works with or owns animals here. Why on earth did she kick up such a stink over this one?

You're supposed to give a shit about your animals. They're living beings not inanimate objects.

Blame the owner, she created the issue

@SillyBub

Why is this is in Women's Health?

Because the owner has attention seeking disorder? 😆

I was fuming watching the news.

His owner should be ashamed of her actions. He could have ended his days in a familiar place, sedated and surrounded by love - not that shitshow.

Blame the owner, she created the issue

And DEFRA and their ridiculous policies and heartless, cold blooded, inhumane staff had nothing to do with it? BS.

She did let him down though. That I agree.

This has been dragged out for 4 years. I'm a huge animal person, but TB is not something to piss about with. The last thing we need is to risk another round of cattle culling. It decimates communities, can traumatise everyone involved and is just so preventable.

This alpaca should have been put down several years ago without all the bullshit.

Imagine the legal costs alone!

Yes heaven forbid the cattle die before we get to eat them. That'd be a real tragedy. Not the cattle being slaughtered, they're doomed either way, but us missing out on a juicy steak.

Bovine TB affects dairy cattle too. It's not all meat related.

I do agree, the owner created this issue and let her animal down.

Yes I know it affects dairy cattle too but they're also heading for the slaughter house too in the end.

I can't even RTFT because it's so upsetting. It is your responsibility when you have an animal companion to be there and let them look at your face of they're put to sleep. So sad.

@PuttyPie

Yes heaven forbid the cattle die before we get to eat them. That'd be a real tragedy. Not the cattle being slaughtered, they're doomed either way, but us missing out on a juicy steak.

What about the suffering that bovine TB causes the animal? It isn’t a bout of sniffles, it will slowly kill an animal very painfully. I wouldnt wish the long drawn out painful death by TB on any creature. It’s best to euthanise any animal with TB.

@LarryVeest

Such a grotesque situation, killing an animal to "protect" other animals so that we can kill them.

Death by bovine TB is very slow and painful. Why wouldn’t you want animals to be kept humanely? This includes disease free and healthy.

Would you rather we just didn’t give a shit about animal welfare and let them get sick and die painfully, only slaughtering the survivors? That’s more suffering for more animals.

Why the bloody hell didn’t she have her animals vaccinated in the first place?

bovine tb can affect humans too.
very unpleasant.

@PuttyPie

What a bloody lot of fuss and lawsuits over a sick animal. Surely having animals put down is an unpleasant but normal part of being a farmer/horse trainer/dog owner/zoo keeper/insert anyone who works with or owns animals here. Why on earth did she kick up such a stink over this one?

You're supposed to give a shit about your animals. They're living beings not inanimate objects.

I didn’t say they shouldn’t give a shit. I said that someone who runs a FARM should know that having to put sick animals down is part of the job. Hell, it’s potentially part of the job if you simply own a pet cat! It’s upsetting but to be expected, no?

I suspect Geronimo's owner had her head turned by all the publicity and celebrity supporters. Loved the hype.

To me it's not about him having to be euthanized, that I can understand and so should she but it was the way it was done, in full view of a bunch of strangers dressed in masks, with tv crews there, protestors shouting, the owner shouting, the poor animal being chased into his pen and then dragged out on the end of a rope. I found that very cruel.

RIP Geronimo. So very very sad

@ShingleBeach

Why the bloody hell didn’t she have her animals vaccinated in the first place?

He had been though, that was possibly what was causing the positive results….

His owner claims a Defra bovine TB test carried out on Geronimo in 2017 showed a false result because he had been repeatedly vaccinated since arriving in the UK
"They know that priming with tuberculin causes false positives and Geronimo has passed all other skin and blood tests," said Mrs MacDonald

Apparently even the scientist responsible for developing the test has said that it is unreliable in animals that have been ‘primed’ with tb.

I remember a similar situation during foot and mouth epidemic when someone had a few cows as pets and they had to be destroyed. It's sad of course, but if you keep a cow, alpaca, sheep etc you have to accept that there are laws in place to protect livestock across the country from disease and you may end up having to slaughter them.

I'd rather we didn't farm animals at all