Fur flies over the fate of Hemingway's cats

London Daily Telegraph ^ | july 31, 2007 | DancesWithCats

[DancesWithCats]

By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles Last Updated: 1:50am BST 31/07/2007

Animal welfare officials are demanding that cats that have roamed Ernest Hemingway's Florida home for decades be subject to laws that would require them to be locked up at night.Nearly 50 "free range" felines, some descendants of the author's pet cat Snowball, have had the run of the Hemingway House and Museum in Key West for generations.

The animals are named after the author's wives, his fictional characters, friends and contemporaries, including Truman Capote, Audrey Hepburn and Joan Crawford. They are fed organic cat food and visited regularly by a vet. The cats have long been part of the museum and petted by the 300,000 tourists who visit each year.

But now the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) wants to classify the cats as performers, akin to animals in a zoo or circus, and require the museum to obtain an animal exhibition licence.

This would require staff to "protect" the cats from contact with visitors and lock them in cages after their daily "performance" ended when the house closed at 5pm, the Los Angeles Times reported.

"Our cats do not do tricks. They don't do flips and jump through hoops. They're our pets," Jacque Sands, the manager of the museum, told the newspaper. "They own us. We don't own them."

[DancesWithCats]

Update on the Hemingway kitties. This is just so ludicrous as to be ridiculous. I hope they win in court.

[Slings and Arrows]

[Sax]

Been down there a few times, visit, and go home.

One rat, one roach, one vermin owned by a historical figure doesn’t saddle the rest of the populace with some twisted reverence to all of the eventual offspring. If they’ve grown out to of control, manage them. That’s common sense - I’d think that even Hemmingway would especially agree with that logic, but even if not...

[supercat]

If they’ve grown out to of control, manage them.

Which is more out of control: the cats, or the USDA?

[Fawn]

Why do those officials keep picking on those poor cats?? Wasn’t this settled? Don’t they have a life?? I Think they need to take on more work...maybe add an existing department so they have some REAL work to do.

[Sunshine Sister]

Excellent question. Why does the USDA care about cats? Don’t they have more important things to be looking in to?

[DancesWithCats]

Because they received a complaint and they have to deal with the complaint in their official, mindless capacity. And because this has garnered so much world-wide attention, they're going overboard in making sure that all their 't's are crossed and all their 'i's are dotted and that nobody will accuse them of going soft ? Just IMHO.