Now arriving at JFK: ponies from Iceland and dogs from the West Bank

As the cargo plane touched down on the tarmac at Kennedy International Airport on Friday afternoon, a cacophonous bark came from the hold.

Maad Abu-Ghazalah stood on the runway below, waiting anxiously. There were exactly 69 dogs on board, all from his West Bank shelter. The hold opened and a set of eyes caught his through a crate door: it was Lucas.

Then came Jimmy, Carlos, Farouk and Zoe, all of whom Mr Abu-Ghazalah had cared for at Daily Hugz, the rescue facility he set up in Asira ash-Shamaliya, outside his hometown of Nablus. The dogs were largely abandoned, many were feral and some had lost legs after being hit by cars.

The shelter was “like a paradise,” Mr Abu-Ghazalah said. But in December, as conditions in the West Bank deteriorated amid the war between Israel and Hamas, he decided he could no longer keep it going. So he called the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals International. And the SPCA called the ARK.

The ARK at JFK is something Noah couldn’t have imagined himself: a private, 24-hour operation at New York’s largest airport, built to accommodate a range of guests with varying needs, from purebred racehorses to exotic zoo animals.

The facility, which covers 14 hectares and 178,000 square meters, prepares animals to fly around the world, ensuring they are calm, travel in comfortable temperatures and are equipped with adequate food and water. It also receives animals when they arrive in New York, quarantines them if necessary, and prepares them for the next steps of their journey.

Lori Kalef, SPCA International’s program director, said that in the seven years the ARK has operated out of Kennedy, 90 percent of the 1,300 dogs and cats it has rescued from abroad have come through the facility.

On Friday morning, a group of employees and volunteers from her organization gathered around a conference table at the ARK office to discuss crates and harnesses. They had encountered many logistical challenges trying to move the dogs from the West Bank, and the flight had been delayed several times.

But then the call came that the dogs would be arriving soon, and the group anxiously walked to the ARK’s “pet oasis,” a fully equipped kennel for cats, dogs and the occasional goat. Ms. Kalef played “The Final Countdown” out loud on her phone.

Once the dogs landed, they were taken straight to the oasis, where all 69 would rest for a night before continuing on to their new homes.

Mr. Abu-Ghazalah, who lives in Wilmington, NC, said he wouldn’t feel relaxed until all the dogs were settled in their new homes across the country, but he was grateful their first stop was the ARK.

“Would you have thought about how there would be a place for them to be taken after they got off the plane?” he said. “You’d think you’d arrive in the US and magically disperse them. But the ARK was great.”

John J. Cuticelli Jr., the ARK’s founder, and Elizabeth A. Schuette, its CEO, consulted closely with Cornell University’s renowned veterinary program and Temple Grandin, the noted animal scientist, while designing and building the operation.

There are dozens of kennels, three horse stables and a veterinary clinic. There are rooms that can be reserved for bird quarantines, and rooms that look like empty showers, designed to be filled with water and frozen in case a penguin comes to stay. In short, this ARK is built to handle anything.

The ARK’s activities consist of two main components: the import and export of horses (some 5,000 horses are shipped annually) and the care of small animals. All horses landing at Kennedy must pass through the facility, but since many pets travel with their owners, rescue operations make up a significant portion of small animal operations.

The ARK works with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Department of Agriculture and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to safely transport the animals. Agencies have different protocols and safety expectations, sometimes requiring employees to make difficult decisions.

For example, the ARK once received a group of poisonous reptiles for shipment, stored in crates, which had been flown in from another country. The forwarder expected them to be loaded onto a passenger plane — an idea Ms. Schuette disagreed with.

Regulations governing transfers were limited, she said, and focused on the health of the animals, not the people they might come into contact with. No one stepped back and looked at the whole situation, which could end badly if the hoses became loose on the plane.

When the airline found out, it canceled the shipment. Now the ARK had a bunch of venomous reptiles – half headed for Texas, half heading for Florida – with nowhere to go; the ARK ultimately helped the broker come up with alternative ground transport.

The ARK experts are also called in to tackle various crises that occur at the airport.

A few years ago, a panicked call came in about a passenger flight being unloaded. A large box of bees had come loose and rogue bees were escaping, but all the shipping instructions were in Spanish and no one knew what to do. The ARK supervisors drove over the asphalt and used nets to secure the bee enclosure.

The episodes highlight the range of problems the facility’s employees may need to solve on any given day.

“I think it gives peace of mind to our clients, as well as other brokers and agencies who send animals to us,” Ms. Schuette said. “We’re going to do well.”

The ARK began as an unexpected venture for Mr. Cuticelli, after a career in which he built a family real estate business, founded a private equity fund and specialized in buying bankrupt companies.

He began negotiating in 2011 with the Port Authority, which operates JFK, to take over the animal terminal. It would take three years, nearly $2 million in legal fees and the work of 11 law firms to sign the lease, and another three years and a $65 million investment to open the ARK.

Mr. Cuticelli and Ms. Schuette, his wife and business partner, had no background in animal transportation and had not initially planned to operate the facility themselves. But after years of planning and research, they changed their minds.

“We were determined,” Ms. Schuette said.

“Madness,” Mr. Cuticelli called it.

After a rocky start involving a $426 million state Supreme Court lawsuit over exclusivity rights, the ARK began working to secure agreements to handle the animals transported by every airline flying out of Kennedy operates.

Although she now has agreements with many of the airlines, Ms. Schuette’s goal for this year is to finalize the contracts with the remaining holdouts.

Mr. Cuticelli said he estimates that the ARK currently has about 60 percent of the horse import market in the United States, a number he expects to increase to 70 percent by the end of the year.

On a recent foggy morning, an Icelandair cargo plane landed on runway 4 at Kennedy and taxied straight to the back door of the ARK. Among the cargo unloaded by the groundskeepers were twelve Icelandic ponies: purebred, top class, prized for their versatility and docility.

After a foot bath, a hosing down and a two-day quarantine, six would go to Vermont, four to Kentucky and two would take a road trip to California.

Each pony had a tracking number, a medical history and, crucially, a passport. Christian Rakshys, the broker who oversaw the shipment, kept a close eye on the imports and confirmed the details of each horse.

Mr Rakshys, managing partner at Global Horse Transport, had a special interest in Icelandic ponies. He and his son, who has special needs, are planning a trip to Iceland this summer to pick out a pony, as the breed is especially prized for therapeutic riding.

On the other side of the ARK, on ​​the same day, Stella, a St. Bernard puppy, waited patiently in the animal oasis. A Lufthansa airline strike left Stella stranded after her owner flew out, but she was on her way to a reunion in Germany and would board a flight later that evening on a red-eye.

Until then, Stella slept with the other oasis residents, mainly a rambunctious group of beagles employed by government agencies for airport security.

The beagles are some of the facility’s only permanent guests. The rest – a group that over the years has included lions, parrots, eagles, badgers, sloths, a capybara, a bearcat and an anteater – usually just pass by.

“You can ship just about anything,” Ms. Schuette said.