The Catfight Is Over, For Now

In September of last year, I wrote a blog entry about the USDA wanting the Hemingway cats of Key West to be licensed. They believed that the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum was "violating the Animal Welfare Act and subject to a daily fine of $200 per cat, or nearly $10,000 a day." Last week, the Key West City Commission disputed the claims of the USDA and ruled that Hemingway's famous felines can stay.

The following is an excerpt from the new ordinance that was approved by the Key West City Commission.

"The cats reside on the property just as the cats did in the time of Hemingway himself. They are not on exhibition in the manner of circus animals. ... The City Commission finds that family of polydactyl Hemingway cats are indeed animals of historic, social and tourism significance."

Ernest Hemingway had nine lives. His cats clearly do too. They dodged a bullet that might have sent them packing and the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum would have been the lesser for it.

Posted on July 14, 2007 | Two comments

The USDA battle continued beyond the Key West ruling of last year. The Hemingway Home was granted a licence by in August of this year (released to press by Mike Morawski Sept 26) because the property, newly enclosed by the Purr...fect Fence system, met USDA requirements for the containment of the cats. See hemingwayhome.com ("our Cats" link) and http://www.purrfectfence.com/hemingway_h.. for more information.

— Matt Hough | October 06, 2008

Interesting how many legends, like this one, can generate so much intensity, and yet have no basis in fact. According to Hemingway family, there were no cats on the property when Hemingway lived there. The six-toed cats are actually descended from cats belonging to a family who lived at 919 Whitehead. When one of the cats showed up around the Hemingway home, cat-lover Hemingway shot it. Earnest became a cat-lover after his move to Cuba. Reference Patrick Heminway's comments on touring the Hemingway house with his wife years after moving out when it had become a tourist attraction.

— Craig Falkner | March 28, 2009