Jacksonville — A Middleburg man will not face charges for killing an alpaca by feeding it junk food, because Clay County deputies say he did not intend to hurt the animal. WOKV is not identifying the man because, although an incident report said he admitted to feeding the animal, he is not being charged with a crime.
In the report, a deputy wrote that the man may be mentally challenged, and promised to never feed the animals at Creekside Animal Hospital again. Witnesses told the deputy that he'd been seen many times feeding multiple animals, including goats and alpacas, in a field shared with a school next-door to the hospital on Fleming Island. Neighbors chased him away and asked him not to feed them, especially things like Doritos and animal crackers, but he merely returned in off hours to feed them again. Earlier this week, WOKV reported that the hospital posted on Facebook that a baby alpaca (pictured above) died after "overindulging" on whole peanuts which were left in the field by a "man in a blue car."