Foreclosure of Alamogordo Chimp Lab Possible

Wednesday, January 9, 2002
By Tania Soussan, Journal Staff Writer

The Coulston Foundation, an Alamogordo medical research lab that uses chimpanzees, is under threat of foreclosure.

An Alamogordo bank filed foreclosure documents in state District Court last month, claiming the foundation owes more than $1.16 million. First National Bank also asked the court to appoint a special master to sell the foundation's property and a receiver to manage the property because it is "in danger of waste, loss or destruction."

The bank contends Coulston has defaulted on five loans and continues to accrue more than $300 a day in interest charges. Foundation spokesman Don McKinney said Tuesday he "has been advised not to comment at all." The foundation's attorneys, Burroughs & Rhodes of Alamogordo, also refused to comment. "

The bank confirms what we have said for years — Coulston management is professionally, morally and financially bankrupt," said Eric Kleiman, research director for California-based In Defense of Animals, which has long campaigned against Coulston. "The U.S. Department of Agriculture must step in immediately, take over the lab as receiver, and permanently retire the chimpanzees there," Kleiman said.

Harriet Roller, development director for Animal Protection of New Mexico Inc., agreed. "In our book, justice has finally been done in terms of the likely closing of this lab," she said. "Now, what we need to do is forge a just solution for the animals because they've suffered so much." If the lab is shut down, finding homes for its 250 or so chimps will be difficult. Sanctuaries and other facilities do not have the space for anywhere close to that number of chimps, Kleiman said.

The foundation's chief executive, Dr. Frederick Coulston, also is named as a defendant in the foreclosure case and could be held responsible for repaying part of the debt because he personally guaranteed some of the loans.

The Coulston Foundation, which employs about 90 people, has been investigated in recent years by the USDA and has been the target of allegations by animal rights activists of animal cruelty. Last October, the USDA warned the Coulston Foundation to correct deficiencies or have its nonclinical lab results for the past two years rejected.

Last July, the USDA accused the primate research facility of violating the Animal Welfare Act in the deaths of two chimps in 1999 and 2000. The federal agency alleged the foundation failed to employ enough qualified veterinary staff, did not receive approval from an oversight committee for research and violated terms of a 1999 consent decree. An animal rights group, the Animal Rights Front, claimed responsibility for a September fire at a maintenance building owned by the foundation. An incendiary device went off in the predawn hours of Set. 20, gutting the building at the foundation's White Sands Research Center. No animals were kept in the building and no one was hurt.