Christina Beckles, Boxer and Dog Rescuer A rescued dog at Kennedy Airport this month. ON a Sunday morning in March, the cavernous arrival hall at Terminal 8 at Kennedy International Airport was virtually deserted save for a cluster of people wearing white T-shirts with black "Sato Project" logos huddled near the cargo entrance. But when American Airlines Flight 648 from San Juan, P.R., touched down and a small, tanned woman wearing a white fedora and blue sweat pants emerged from customs, the group snapped to attention. Christina Beckles, 39, a former Golden Gloves boxing champion and the founder of the Sato Project, a rescue organization that brings abandoned and abused dogs to the continental United States from Puerto Rico, had just landed with 17 animals in tow. Ms. Beckles had spent the previous four days in Puerto Rico, and it had been an emotional trip: On Day 3 she had seen a puppy hit and killed by a sport utility vehicle that sped away. Now, she stopped to hug her husband, Bobby Beckles, 44, a professional stuntman, and dissolved into tears in his arms. Then she wiped her eyes, thanked her white-shirted entourage and got down to business: keeping tabs on the procession of crates streaming into the arrival hall. Inside were 17 satos - Puerto Rican slang for mongrels - 16 of which Ms. Beckles had rescued from Dead Dog Beach, the notorious and remote spot on the island's southeastern shore, where for decades owners have routinely dumped unwanted animals. As the containers piled up, the Beckleses methodically unlocked them, and out spilled the dogs: among them six fuzzy puppies whose mother had died while giving birth; two other puppy siblings found in a sealed cardboard box in the beach's parking lot; Shiner, a personable terrier Ms. Beckles had plucked impromptu from the local Humane Society; and Murphy, a brindled boxer mix who had turned up, wet and hungry, on the beach one morning. Upon release, the dogs cavorted as if on a play date; the smallest puppies were cuddled in volunteers" arms. Other people have wrestled with the sato problem before. A 2007 episode in Barceloneta village, where hired "exterminators" rounded up dozens of dogs and threw them off a bridge, focused attention on Puerto Rico's treatment of animals and led to a proposed tourist boycott of the island. The issue was brought to light again by a People magazine article in 2008 about the frustrations of rescuers working at Dead Dog Beach. That same year, Public Law 154, which made animal abuse and abandonment illegal, became official, though advocates say that it is rarely, if ever, enforced. Maritza Rodríguez, the executive director of the Humane Society of Puerto Rico, said her shelter took in 100 unwanted dogs daily. "Euthanasia in Puerto Rico is around 97 percent," she said. Adoptable animals are dying and suffering on our streets and beaches. Taking animals off the island "is not the solution," Ms. Rodríguez added, "but it is one more chance to save lives." Since November, when the British-born Ms. Beckles struck out on her own after several years of volunteering for other organizations but feeling dissatisfied by the results they achieved, she has become the unlikely but unrelenting savior of Dead Dog Beach. Operating out of her apartment in Brooklyn, and with minimal financial support, she has taken 81 dogs from the beach, paid for their medical care and placed 60 of the dogs healthy enough to make the trip to the United States in adoptive homes. Without Ms. Beckles's intervention, all of the dogs would likely be dead from starvation, sickness or worse. By necessity, she has cultivated a network of volunteers on the island and stateside who share her passion. Two of the tiniest arrivals on Sunday were taken to their adopter in Boston by Lillian Penney of Center Moriches, N.Y., whose first encounter with the Sato Project came in February. While in Puerto Rico on a family vacation, Ms. Penney found a starving, pregnant dog in a restaurant parking lot. "Nobody wanted to help," she said. It broke my heart. After connecting with Ms. Beckles online, Ms. Penney was quickly enlisted as an escort for three puppies aboard the flight to Kennedy Airport from San Juan - and she ended up adopting one of them. "When you see the compassion she has, you feel like you just have to help," she said of Ms. Beckles. You look in the eyes of these dogs and actually see the difference you're making. DEAD DOG BEACH, officially known as Playa Lucia, is nondescript in most ways, but notorious for the vagrant animals dumped there and left to fend for themselves or die. Sometimes the dogs arrive in cardboard boxes, nine terrified puppies crammed in. Sometimes they are booted out of vehicles. Many have wounds from abuse. Ms. Beckles and her surrogates do their work by daylight; after dark, the beach is safe neither for them nor the dogs because of youths who gather there to party and to use the dogs for target practice, local rescuers say. "My goal is for it to be called by its real name, Playa Lucia, again someday," she said.