Geronimo.

[CopperBeech]

Roe & Muntjac much less sociable?

Don’t move about as much either.

 

[Lincsman]

I took this screenshot off their camera last week as I also wondered how this could count as isolation:
View attachment 982995

Must be OK as the others have not tested positive in the last 4 years... assume they have continued to test?

 

[matthew]

Must be OK as the others have not tested positive in the last 4 years... assume they have continued to test?

You could be assuming quite wrongly.

 

[Ffermer Bach]

I sense a touch of irony that the warrant for its destruction expires one day before "national alpaca farm day". I nearly had a fit driving through a fairly posh local village to see signs advertising "alpaca trecking" where you seemingly *pay actual money* to take these stupid things for a walk. Total joke, but evidence of how we farmers are missing the bunny cuddling trick:

1) open animal sanctuary.
2) blame "mean" farms for pretty standard husbandry.
3) suck up gullible fools' money to essentially stroke old goats.

This alpaca needs euthsnising right now and this whole charade ending before it turns silly.

I watched Paul Merton the other day on TV, driving through Wales with his wife in a camper van. They stopped at a farm in the Brecon Beacons to go sheep trekking, this involved putting a halter on a sheep and walking it round the farm! All I can say, is it's a funny old world if people are willing to pay for that!

 

[Ffermer Bach]

The Times has quite a bit to say about this evacuation.
Sadly nobody has picked up on the disease aspect of it but they have little time for the abuse that Pen and his supporters aimed at the government .
Sadly Boris caved in no doubt with somebody squeezing his doo dahs

A good piece by Charlotte Elvers in her Comment in The Times

Do you ever feel like you’re going slightly insane? Like the world has shifted so far from your understanding that the only explanation must be that some hitherto undisturbed part of your brain has melted?
I experienced this feeling while listening to Tom Swarbrick’s late-night show on LBC last week. He was taking calls on the topic of Operation Ark — the effort to evacuate about 200 animals from Afghanistan. Caller after caller declared that the animals should be saved even if that meant diverting resources away from rescuing people. I listened in astonishment. One thing I had always presumed that everyone could agree on was that a human life is worth more than an animal life. How wrong I was. Quantifiably wrong, in fact. A YouGov poll last week showed 40 per cent of people think an animal life is worth the same as a human life.
If you’ve been lucky enough to miss this debacle, let me summarise. Paul “Pen” Farthing, a former marine who owns an animal charity, wanted to evacuate his 200 rescue cats and dogs from Kabul. They were denied access to an RAF flight because, well, you can’t put dogs on an RAF plane, and also there are desperate people who need to be on it.

A lobbying campaign ensued. Farthing was eventually told he would be able to charter his own plane — if he could get to the airport under his own steam. But you don’t just swan into Kabul airport. The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, growing increasingly irate at the farce, told MPs last week, “I have soldiers on the ground who have been diverted from saving those people because of inaccurate stories, inaccurate lobbying that have diverted that resource.” What really got to me is the fact that so many people seem to think this is a reasonable trade-off.
Think of those photographs of actual humans handing their babies to British soldiers, unsure if they will ever see them again. A thousand eligible Afghans will not make it to the UK.

Last week I texted a few MPs, asking: Have you had more campaigning emails from constituents about saving human refugees, or animals? All but one said animals. Perhaps I should not have been surprised. For years, parliamentary staff have told me their inboxes are dominated by pleas to save animals, regardless of any human suffering anywhere in the world.
I understand the urge to protect helpless animals. We have always been a nation of animal lovers. There is a proud history of tabloid campaigns to save condemned fluffy creatures. Most recently the star of the show has been Geronimo, the TB-ridden alpaca whose death was ordered four years ago. He is now on his third environment secretary.
In 1987 there was Blackie, the donkey beaten and dragged through the streets as part of a fiesta tradition, saved from Spain by the Daily Star and rehomed in England. Then there was Anne, Britain’s last circus elephant, rescued in 2011 after more than £400,000 was raised to give her a new life.
Late in the day, our government has caught on to the trend. There is a temptation to attribute the Conservative Party’s conversion to the cause of animal rights to the prime minister’s wife, Carrie. This does not capture the whole story. The Tory animal rights revolution began in 2017 when MPs and candidates felt stung by the anger shown during the general election about the party’s position on fox hunting. Those who returned to Westminster had a conviction that Something Must Be Done to correct the view that the government was a bunch of fox-murdering toffs.

​

There were two further factors. An internal poll showed that environmental issues were one of the few areas that the public cared about and also did not feel that either of the big political parties owned. And there was a plea from the Downing Street policy unit for policy ideas that were popular, cheap and did not require legislation: the Holy Grail for a government with minimal support, less money and even less of a majority. Thus we were inundated with animal-friendly policies, from banning plastic straws to reintroducing three beavers to the countryside. The latter policy warranted a government press release.
I have watched the government’s animal infatuation with mild bemusement, but an overall sense of affection. But the fact that, in order to secure the safe passage of some dogs and cats, resources, time and energy have been diverted from saving people who have put themselves at risk to work for our country? I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. And I really don’t like what it says about our country.
@CharlotteIvers

I feel a deep sense of unease about giving medals to animals for gallantry too

French special forces dog awarded top UK gallantry medal - France 24

French special forces dog awarded top UK gallantry medal

www.france24.com

 

[unlacedgecko]

I feel a deep sense of unease about giving medals to animals for gallantry too

French special forces dog awarded top UK gallantry medal - France 24

French special forces dog awarded top UK gallantry medal

www.france24.com

I don't. I think it's brilliant such animals are recognised.

 

[CopperBeech]

I don't. I think it's brilliant such animals are recognised.

Agreed

 

[CopperBeech]

Can someone tell me how putting down geronimo and all the fuss it has entailed ..... has had any kind of positive impact on the uk TB situation ?

A bit like that bull Shambo - cow lived an isolated life, cow wasn’t going to be sold, eaten or moved and not going to come into contact with other cows outside the temple ....... so what was the issue ?

 

[Muddyroads]

Can someone tell me how putting down geronimo and all the fuss it has entailed ..... has had any kind of positive impact on the uk TB situation ?

A bit like that bull Shambo - cow lived an isolated life, cow wasn’t going to be sold, eaten or moved and not going to come into contact with other cows outside the temple ....... so what was the issue ?

Parity.

 

[Ffermer Bach]

I don't. I think it's brilliant such animals are recognised.

I think by giving gallantry awards to animals we are blurring the lines between people and animals, for gallantry you need reasoning and I don't believe animals have reasoning in the same way we do.

 

[unlacedgecko]

I think by giving gallantry awards to animals we are blurring the lines between people and animals, for gallantry you need reasoning and I don't believe animals have reasoning in the same way we do.

No they don't. But have you read the article?

The dog did what he was trained to do. But he did it under extremely adverse conditions where many a lesser dog would have failed. In unflinchingly carrying out his duties the dog saved several human lives and guaranteed the success of the mission.

He was later killed in action. I think all of that is worth recognising.

 

[CopperBeech]

Parity.

Exactly. No positive benefit at all, just a case of “if I’m having a bad do then everyone else better be having the same”, rather than maybe thinking of using it as a vehicle to enact change. Farmers are funny, as long as we are all equally miserable it’s all good

 

[CopperBeech]

I think by giving gallantry awards to animals we are blurring the lines between people and animals, for gallantry you need reasoning and I don't believe animals have reasoning in the same way we do.

Surely it’s just about bravery ? Animals defiantly have differing levels of bravery / bottle / toughness. Otherwise producing working animals would be easy!

 

[Henarar]

Exactly. No positive benefit at all, just a case of “if I’m having a bad do then everyone else better be having the same”, rather than maybe thinking of using it as a vehicle to enact change. Farmers are funny, as long as we are all equally miserable it’s all good

socialism

 

[Muddyroads]

Exactly. No positive benefit at all, just a case of “if I’m having a bad do then everyone else better be having the same”, rather than maybe thinking of using it as a vehicle to enact change. Farmers are funny, as long as we are all equally miserable it’s all good

I’m not saying it’s right, and in fairness to the owner she puts up a good argument. Just because people seem to find it harder to accept an alpaca being destroyed than a cow, why should the treatment be any different?
What will be very interesting will be the outcome of the post-mortem and any fallout from it.

 

[Exfarmer]

Must be OK as the others have not tested positive in the last 4 years... assume they have continued to test?

The others have not been tested, there is no compulsion for camelids to be tested

 

[CopperBeech]

I’m not saying it’s right, and in fairness to the owner she puts up a good argument. Just because people seem to find it harder to accept an alpaca being destroyed than a cow, why should the treatment be any different?
What will be very interesting will be the outcome of the post-mortem and any fallout from it.

That is precisely my point.

Most folk don’t have any clue at all about how many cows are culled for TB. They think a small number are culled to protect us all etc.

Instead of obsessing about killing the alpaca “because they need to have as sh*t a time as we are having” perhaps it would have been an ideal opportunity to question the mass killing of cows for just about zero positive impact on the TB situation .......

Ya get me ?

 

[Treecreeper]

Don’t move about as much either.

They are essentially browsers, where as the larger species graze more.Even when roe are out in the open field they are picking at the more favourable bitd.

 

[Exfarmer]

I’m not saying it’s right, and in fairness to the owner she puts up a good argument. Just because people seem to find it harder to accept an alpaca being destroyed than a cow, why should the treatment be any different?
What will be very interesting will be the outcome of the post-mortem and any fallout from it.

TB is a very strange disease, the bacteria can form form themselves into a tiny cyst like structure which his very small and often in the bone cavity. If the animal is not in the later stages of the disease it can be very difficult to discover. One expert suggested that it would need sectioning into slices less than 1 mm to ensure that you found it, and this include the bones of course. The disease also exhibits another quirk where the dying victim seems to make a recovery in its later stages, but this is only for a matter of weeks or possibly month until the system is totally overwhelmed. In this stage the body becomes seemingly immune to the cold.

 

[Henarar]

One expert suggested that it would need sectioning into slices less than 1 mm to ensure that you found it

I think they did that with reactors that didn't have visible lesions and they did find it