Aroma Pets

Geronimo the alpaca to be destroyed after owner loses High Court bid to save him

The animal's owner had been appealing to save him, believing the tests were returning false positives.

Helen Macdonald has been refused permission to have the animal tested a third time - but the court concluded there was "no prospect" of success in her bid to overturn an earlier ruling.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) says she will not have to destroy Geronimo today.

Speaking after today's ruling Ms Mcdonald said she was "really quite shocked" at the outcome but that "it's not over".

Ms Macdonald lost her final appeal at the High Court earlier this month and a warrant was issued for the alpaca to be euthanised.

More than 130,000 people signed a petition calling on the prime minister to halt the killing, which has sparked a public outcry.

Ms Macdonald, who owns a farm at Wickwar near Bristol, imported Geronimo from New Zealand in 2017.

An application for an injunction to stop the destruction order was considered by the High Court yesterday - but the judge said she needed more information from Ms Macdonald and from government lawyers before she could make her decision.

The hearing was adjourned until today, when Mrs Justice Stacey refused the application.

Geronimo first tested positive for bovine tuberculosis in September 2017 and has been in isolation ever since, according to the owner's lawyers.

Catrin McGahey QC said nine other animals who were subject to the same testing regime as Geronimo showed no signs of the disease after they were slaughtered, indicating a potential flaw in the tests.

She argued that Defra knew about this and had not disclosed the information, which came to light as a result of a recent Daily Mail investigation.

Mrs Justice Stacey said the farmer's complaint about non-disclosure was a "disingenuous and backdoor way of seeking a further route to appeal" and did not give rise to an arguable case.

Ms Macdonald told the PA news agency: "I thought that the judge would allow the evidence to be put forward so that we could look at it."

She said the judge seems to have taken it "on face value" that Defra have disclosed what they needed to disclose.

"Clearly they haven't, because they've been covering this up for four years," she said.

She added: "It's not over. We're back to where we were a week ago."

She said the government has to "sort this out properly", adding: "I'm not having my healthy animal put to sleep, and neither am I going to permit them, if I can possibly help it, to come and slaughter him in front of the rest of the planet.

"They seem to want to make it my decision, and make me put my animal to sleep, to get the blood off their hands. I'm not doing it."

Dr Iain McGill, a vet who has been advising Geronimo's owner, said the decision made at the High Court was "incredible".

He said Defra has been "unable to produce any evidence" to back up claims that the tests used on Geronimo are over 99% accurate.

"Geronimo's diagnosis is more than unsafe," he said. "It is a miscarriage of justice."

Ned Westaway, representing Defra executive agency the Animal and Plant Health Agency, said Ms Macdonald would be given the opportunity to make her own arrangements for Geronimo's destruction.

The government has insisted the testing results and options for Geronimo have been carefully considered.

A Defra spokesperson said: "Bovine tuberculosis is one of the greatest animal health threats we face today and causes devastation and distress for farming families and rural communities across the country, while costing the taxpayer around £100 million every year.

"Therefore, while nobody wants to cull infected animals, we need to do everything we can to tackle this disease to stop it spreading and to protect the livelihoods of those affected."

Reference: Sky News: Alexa Phillips, news reporter

You clever swine: Pigs in first documented case of animals solving problems to rescue one another

Pigs possess problem-solving abilities when coming to the rescue of one another, a study suggests, after scientists watched a mother rescue two of her offspring from a trap.

Scientists from the Czech University of Life Sciences witnessed the great escape via cameras that were trained on a trap in Voděradské Bučiny National Nature Reserve, located east of Prague.

The traps were set up to allow scientists to tag some of the native wild pig population in the region for ongoing studies on the spread of African Swine Fever.

But what the academics had not anticipated was to capture a remarkable interaction that revolutionises what we know about pigs.

The night time cameras are triggered by movement, and when active snap a photo every two minutes.

The great escape 

On the night of January 28 2020, at 11:06 pm, a juvenile wild boar wandered into the large metal crate through an open door that was waiting to crash shut. A three metre long piece of wood is balanced on top of the crate, poised to lock the door on any unsuspecting animals.

The young pig avoided the trip wire and ate the corn bait for 15 minutes before its more cautious companion decided to join, seeking to also feast on the corn.

However, the young animals soon learnt that there really is no such thing as a free lunch as the new arrival triggered the door mechanism and the cage door slammed shut on the pigs.

They barged against the sides of the cage in clear distress trying to free themselves from their cage in the darkness for more than two hours.

At 1:27 am, a group of six boar, including one fully grown adult female, arrived at the scene and immediately began sniffing the cage and, specifically, the log which kept the door shut.

This female’s mane was erect, with her hairs standing on end, a clear indicator that she too was distressed. The photo series showed that she repeatedly rammed the blockading log in an attempt to free the cage entrance.

It took more than ten minutes before the fully-grown female managed to dislodge both ends of the log lock, but the door could only be opened from the inside.

It took a further 15 minutes before the stressed youngsters inside the cage figured out how to open the trap door and exit from their cage shortly before 2am.

First documented case 

This is the first documented case of rescuing behaviour in pigs, the researchers write in their study, published in Scientific Reports.

“The fact that she exhibited signs of piloerection in more than half of the photos in which she was present may imply possible physiological arousal of the female when watching others in distress and potentially even matching emotional state,” they write.

“She also continuously stayed in proximity to the cage and often looked at the victims. Thus, it is possible that the rescuer female either perceived the situation as dangerous or perceived the emotional state of the entrapped boars and acted to alleviate it.

“Therefore, the rescue behaviour in wild boar might have been empathy motivated.”

The experts add that the images indicate that although the adult female was in a group of six boar at the time of the rescue, she acted independently.

“Because of the relatively small body size of the entrapped individuals, it is presumed that the female might have been their mother and that the boars were part of one group,” the researchers write. 

Venus Flytrap Eats Wasps

Occurred on September 2020 / Germany: "During the summer months of the last few years I have been observing, photographing and filming social wasps in my garden in Dohr (located in the Eifel region) in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. As a nature photogra

Reference: Buzz Videos

Carrie Johnson urged to help stop slaughter of Geronimo the alpaca

Reference: The Telegraph: Janet Eastham