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OUR MAN IN WESTMINSTER Chris Loder, Member of Parliament for West Dorset
T
he story of Geronimo the alpaca has received much media attention in the last few months. An animal diagnosed with bovine tuberculosis which was required to be put down to prevent it from passing on the disease, but also from having a slow and horrible death. But I was somewhat aghast by the whole story because, to me, it exposed the flaws in the argument cited by activists. Those against the animal being taken away, ironically, are often those opposed to the badger cull, and, I would argue, unaware of the real damage these animals cause. Now, once or twice a year, farms in and around 22 | Sherborne Times | October 2021
Sherborne, indeed all over the country, have tests for the whole herd to identify if any their cows have bovine TB. Our farmers have lived in fear for years and years because if they find they have it, the cow is set to be slaughtered immediately and, in some cases, the entire herd. Having grown up on a farm, where bovine TB can, and does, have catastrophic consequences, I have seen first-hand the traumas that this can involve. The Geronimo activists are unaware of all this, because if they really were we’d be having a proper conversation about badger culling, about the understanding of what bovine TB really is and the
