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Another Beloved Cat Disappears At JFK Airport
By
John Del Signore
Published Oct 23, 2012
Modified Oct 23, 2012
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By
John Del Signore
Published Oct 23, 2012
Modified Oct 23, 2012
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JFK Airport: Where beloved KITTEHS go to vanish. At the end of August 2011, Jack the Cat was lost by American Airlines at JFK and didn't turn up for two months—by then his internal injuries were so severe that he had to be put to sleep. We really hope things turn out differently for Xiaohwa here. The 4-year-old feline bolted from her traveling crate at JFK’s Terminal 4 last Wednesday and hasn't been seen since.
Xiaohwa was headed back to Taipei to be reunited with his owner, Iris Yu, who is working abroad. Yu's boyfriend, Jerry Cheung, tells DNAinfo that a friend took Xiaohwa to the airport on Wednesday. When a customs official asked the friend to open the cat’s travel crate for inspection, Xiaohwa bolted and got away. That was almost a week ago, and the poor thing is still missing. A Port Authority spokesman did not immediately respond to our request for comment.
Cheung says Xiaohwa has had a hard life and suffers from feline immunodeficiency virus, the cat version of HIV. "[Yu and I] found Xiaohwa together,” Cheung tells DNAinfo. “So losing her is like losing our child. I can understand the airport is a pretty big place. And for a cat, there’s a lot of places to hide. But there should be some expert or pet detectives that can facilitate in resolving situations like this."
Come on Xiaohwa, give us a happy ending here pal!
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cats
JFK
jfk airport
Xiaohwa
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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