US: When the delayed passenger is a potbellied pig

Every traveler has a story to tell. This is just as true of the Ark at JFK, the gleaming new animal transportation center at Kennedy International Airport, as it is at the human passenger terminals. Eight months after its high-profile opening, the Ark — nestled along the winding back roads of Kennedy’s cargo country among mysterious boxy buildings and power plants — is starting to live up to its name. In addition to cats and dogs and goats and horses, the Ark has hosted a potbellied pig who needed a place to wait after missing a connecting flight, 235 racing pigeons that got stranded for three days, and an agouti, a giant 8-pound rodent that the Minnesota Zoo was shipping to the Bermuda Zoo. The Ark replaced the airport’s old animal terminal, Vetport, a run-down barn a couple of miles away. Among frequent animal shippers, the Vetport is not mourned. “It was an abomination,” said Paul Weygand of Mersant International, a courier with offices just outside the airport’s border. “I literally had rats run across my feet.”<br/>