'Adios, alpacas' as national show moves

The British Alpaca Society is holding its final national show at Telford's International Centre before moving to Staffordshire.

The event has been staged there since 2014, but is due to move to Bingley Hall next year.

Up to 600 animals from around 100 farms are due to attend the three-day event, which runs from Friday to Sunday.

The show is similar to Crufts, with the alpacas being judged on the quality of their fleece.

Duncan Pullar, the chief executive of The British Alpaca Society, said it was the first big alpaca event of the year, and because the animals still have their winter coats, the temperature in the hall has to be kept at no more than 15C (59F).

Tom Scott from Dark Sky Alpacas travelled from Cornwall for the show.

He said he became involved with the alpacas after buying a home in Cornwall.

"We realised we'd bought 20 acres and didn't have anything on it," he said.

The answer was to go on a course to learn how to keep alpacas and he said: "You fall in love with them so quickly.

"It's all about the fleece, it's a luxurious fleece."

Now he attends the show "to hang around with like-minded strange people who own these South American animals".

Barbara Hetherington, a former nurse from Cumbria, said she fell in love with the animals after a holiday in Peru, but it took four years to persuade her husband to get some.

"Alpacas have got empathy the same as we have, they grieve if they lose a member of their family," she said.

"They're quite like humans in their emotions."

She now has around 200 alpacas on her farm and said: "I know every single one."

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