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Home > Media Room > WRR in the Media > A home with room to roam: After removal
from NM lab, test subjects retire to Hill Country refuge
 A
home with room to roam
After removal from NM lab, test subjects
retire to Hill Country refuge
by David McLemore, The Dallas Morning News
Monday, January 6, 2003
Kendalia, Texas — The new arrivals were
a little uncertain about their new home. Like many older workers,
there's a period of adjustment before they can enjoy their
Hill Country retirement.
First, they had to get used to the idea that
they wouldn't be subjected to scientific experiments or locked
into cramped cages.
In December, the first four of about 60 macaque
monkeys removed in September from what primate specialist
Jane Goodall had called the worst laboratory in America, enjoyed
the taste of freedom at the Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation
refuge near Boerne.
Soon, they will be able to kick back, feel
the wind in their hair and relax in their own Central Texas
retirement center to do whatever monkeys do.
"It was something we knew we had to do,"
said Wildlife Rescue executive director Lynn Cuny. "These
monkeys had endured a living hell for many years, suffering
unbelievable abuse. Their retirement is well-earned."
In September, 266 chimpanzees and 61 macaque
monkeys were removed from the Coulston Foundation laboratory
in Alamogordo, N.M., after years of federal investigation
and intense scrutiny from animal rights groups.
The animals, ages 2 to 40 years, were used
for scientific and medical research. After Coulston labs went
bankrupt last year, the Center for Captive Chimpanzee Care
in Florida took control of the animals. In November, center
officials asked Wildlife Rescue if they could take care of
the macaques.
A not-for-profit, tax-exempt haven for the
rehabilitation of orphaned, injured or abandoned wildlife
for more than 20 years, Wildlife Rescue couldn't refuse. Particularly,
Ms. Cuny said, after she visited the Coulston facility in
November.
 "The
monkeys had been confined in stainless steel cages about 2.5
feet by 2.5 feet that were mounted to the wall in tiers,"
she said. "There was no bed and no room to lie prone.
The room had no windows and there was no access to the outside.
Many of the monkeys lived that way for years. It was like
a prison."
Macaques weigh 8 to 35 pounds and live from
25 to 35 years. Like humans, nonhuman primates may become
mentally disturbed when kept in social isolation, and they
often express their distress in abnormal behavior patterns.
"The life the macaques lived at Coulston
led to depression and self-destructions," Ms. Cuny said.
"They sat listlessly in their cages. Out of boredom,
they'd chew on their arms and legs to the bone."
One of the males now at Wildlife Rescue had
chewed open his stomach and pulled out his intestines, Ms.
Cuny said. He is recuperating and doing well.
The macaques will eventually join a coterie
of other primates, as well as jaguars, mountain lions, hedgehogs,
parrots and other abandoned or homeless wildlife on the refuge's
187 acres.
The refuge has launched a drive to collect
$ 600,000 to build a 20-acre primate retirement center.
The primates will be divided by species into
small groups and placed in 1-acre fenced spaces, where they
can replicate their natural existence as much as possible.
Each enclosure will also have indoor housing for cold or rainy
weather.
"It will take at least $ 250,000 just
to build the enclosures needed to house the monkeys. We hope
to raise the funds in the next few months so all the macaques
can be moved here," Ms. Cuny said.
"Right now, the ones already here are
still in quarantine, but we're seeing some positive changes,"
she said. "They're in a place where the sun shines through
the window. They open their arms and let the sun hit their
entire body. They know they're out of that horror and are
starting to relax."
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