🕯️ LEGENDS GARDEN
🦙 Geronimo
Huacaya alpaca (Lama pacos) · Shepherds Close Farm, Wickwar, South Gloucestershire, England
Lives in Legends Garden
Geronimo was a Huacaya alpaca born in New Zealand on 6 February 2013 and imported to England in August 2017 by veterinary nurse Helen Macdonald after four negative tuberculosis tests. In the UK he twice tested positive for bovine TB on a blood test his owner argued was giving false positives, and the four-year legal fight that followed became one of Britain's most closely watched animal stories, with a petition passing 140,000 signatures. On 31 August 2021 government vets escorted by around twenty police officers took him from the farm and euthanised him. A post-mortem published that December was inconclusive for bovine TB.
What they do
Swings his long neck up and around in a slow scan, ears snapping upright, then shakes his whole fleece out in a shiver from shoulders to rump..
Quiet, watchful, and never asked for a single bit of it.
Lore
- ★He passed four negative TB tests in New Zealand before being imported to England in August 2017.
- ★A petition against his destruction gathered more than 140,000 signatures and was backed by broadcaster Chris Packham.
- ★His owner's legal costs reached about £43,000 by August 2021.
- ★Post-mortem testing published in December 2021 was inconclusive for bovine tuberculosis.
Helping the real one
No verified way to support this animal exists.
We will not invent one.
Geronimo died in 2021. His owner has continued to campaign over the case, but there is no verified donation or memorial fund page for the animal.
Where this comes from
Every link here was checked twice before it was published. If one is dead or wrong, tell us.