Geronimo, the condemned alpaca, has been granted another 24-hour reprieve, with its owner claiming the UK government hopes she will carry out its “dirty work” and put her beloved animal down herself. “They don’t want blood on their hands,” said Helen Macdonald, a veterinary nurse. “They’re trying to wear me down and get me to euthanise a perfectly healthy animal. I’m not going to do that. Simple as that.” Geronimo has twice tested positive for bovine tuberculosis and Macdonald has been told he must be put down, but she has argued for four years that the regime is flawed and has begged the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to recheck the camelid. The end appeared to be nigh for Geronimo when on Wednesday, far away from his field in south Gloucestershire, a high court judge in London rejected a last-minute attempt to save him. Ned Westaway, representing the Animal and Plant Health Agency (Apha), an executive agency of Defra, told the court it would give Macdonald the opportunity to make her own arrangements for Geronimo’s destruction. Macdonald’s legal team said Defra had the right to enforce the warrant to put down Geronimo at any time after 4.30pm the following day. Macdonald has said she will not break the law to stop whoever comes for the animal doing what they have to do. But she has also said she will not help them, and that a live CCTV camera perched above his pen will broadcast to the world what goes on. On Thursday a hardy band of supporters put up a “human shield” around Geronimo. But 4.30pm came and went and Macdonald received word that government officials would not try to enforce the warrant before 5pm on Friday. There has been an outpouring of support from the public, with more than 130,000 people signing a petition calling on Boris Johnson to halt the killing. Macdonald said there was still another way. “They could order that he stay here for research and we’d all learn something. He doesn’t have to die. Defra have a choice. They can either work with us or they can try and kill him in front of the world.” 
The government says all the evidence on the animal’s condition has been “looked at very carefully”. A Defra spokesperson said: “We are sympathetic to Macdonald’s situation, just as we are with everyone with animals affected by this terrible disease. It is for this reason that the testing results and options for Geronimo have been very carefully considered by Defra, the Animal and Plant Health Agency and its veterinary experts, as well as passing several stages of thorough legal scrutiny. “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 £100m every year. Therefore, while nobody wants to cull animals, we need to do everything we can to tackle this disease to stop it spreading and to protect the livelihoods of those affected.” Macdonald said: “Every day is a new day. There’s been masses of emails and everything has been going manic again. I’ve been having this hanging over my head for a really long time and it is not over and we will keep going.”