No plans in the works to move Alamogordo chimps, federal agency confirms
Apr. 22—The Alamogordo chimps may not be moving after all.
Animal rights activists have fought for years to force the National Institutes of Health to allow a colony of former biomedical test subject chimpanzees from the Alamogordo Primate Facility at Holloman Air Force Base to retire to a sanctuary in northern Louisiana.
Animal Protection New Mexico and The Humane Society of the United States celebrated last month when the federal agency, under leadership of newly installed Director Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, withdrew its appeal to a ruling from a judge who said keeping the chimps at the facility was a violation of a chimpanzee sanctuary law passed in 2000.
But despite that legal course reversal, the federal agency confirmed to The New Mexican there's no imminent plan for moving the colony to the sanctuary after all. In an interpretation animal rights activists criticize as flawed, the organization cited a provision in that law they say exempts the Alamogordo chimps and noting the judge in a recent case didn't specifically order the transfer.
"The CHIMP Act mandates the transfer of federally supported chimpanzees to Chimp Haven, unless a chimpanzee is moribund," an NIH spokeswoman wrote in an email Thursday. "NIH previously categorized each remaining chimpanzee at Alamogordo as moribund, per the agency's understanding of that term."
"Moribund" means at the point of death. NIH plans to conduct an annual evaluation of the chimpanzees at Alamogordo to determine whether they're still at that point, the email said.
"The APF attending veterinarian routinely conducts annual exams on the APF chimpanzees and plans to conduct an exam in September," the spokeswoman wrote. "The NIH Veterinary Panel will begin doing annual evaluations on the APF chimpanzees starting summer/fall of this year."
The chimps haven't been used for experiments since 2015, and now range from age 33 to 57, according to information provided by The Humane Society of the United States. As many as 26 chimps are still living at the facility, according to Kathleen Conlee, vice president of animal research issues for the group, citing its most recent update from February 2023.
Nick Arrivo, an attorney for The Humane Society, said in an email organization leaders take issue with NIH's interpretation of the law.
The organization sued NIH in 2019 over its decision at the time not to move the chimps from New Mexico to Chimp Haven. The judge in that case sided with The Humane Society, Arrivo wrote, including determining that "NIH's October 2019 decision not to transfer the Alamogordo chimps to Chimp Haven because of their chronic health conditions was 'inconsistent' with the CHIMP Act's statutory requirement," he wrote.
When The Humane Society later asked for the judge to specifically order NIH to transfer the chimps to Chimp Haven — a request Arrivo described as an effort to head off any "end-run" on the CHIMP Act — the judge declined. Arrivo said that didn't outweigh the earlier ruling.
Arrivo accused NIH of "relying on a footnote" in the earlier ruling "simply indicated the parties agree a moribund chimp doesn't need to be moved to sanctuary," and said the agency's definition of "moribund" is overbroad.
"So, in our view, NIH is just attempting to redo something that the court already found was illegal — denying these chimps sanctuary retirement based on the same health conditions underlying its October 2019 decision — by appending the word moribund to its determination," Arrivo wrote. "... It's time for NIH to stop making excuses and start moving the chimps. Every day that goes by is one more that a chimp is denied sanctuary, and we're going to continue to fight for them."
Gene Grant, animals and science policy officer for Animal Protection New Mexico, said his organization agrees with The Humane Society.
"It's really not complicated for us," Grant told The New Mexican. "... The NIH has clear orders to follow the tenets of the CHIMP Act and move these chimps to sanctuary."
