Hemingway Cats Nearly Evicted from Museum

As I was poking around looking for information on Hemingway's cat fancy, I stumbled across an article by Laura Parker of USA Today entitled, "The Plot Thickens for Hemingway's Cats". Apparently, during the mid-2000s a spat that started between the Museum staff and an animal rights activist almost caused the famous cats to be hauled away under the jurisdiction of the USDA.

The government got involved due to a neighbor's complaint in 2003 that the cats were scaling the grounds walls and roaming the area, bullying other cats and generally being a nuisance. At one point, USDA representatives rented a cottage on the premises to observe these wayward felines. The Museum was cited for violating a 1966 animal welfare law, and the government demanded that the cats be kept on the property via electric fencing or something of that nature. At first, the Museum agreed, but then decided to counter-sue, claiming that the law cited didn't apply to them. As these issues were being argued in court, the Museum was in danger of not only losing their cats, but being slapped with huge fines.

Were the cats really causing that much trouble? Further into the article, the real issue came to light. The neighbor who complained was a former animal shelter administrator named Debbie Schultz. When she first moved to the neighborhood, she and the Museum developed a relationship whereby she was given keys to the Home's grounds. After some time, however, this relationship soured. Schultz routinely trapped cats to bring them to the shelter to be spayed and neutered. Her zeal extended to the Museum, where staff eventually banned her for neutering too many cats and leaving too few to continue propagating the bloodline.

Luckily, this story had a happy ending. In 2008, an article in the San Fransisco Chronicle reported that an agreement had been reached, and the cats would stay put. The Museum agreed to install a fence to contain the animals, and an animal welfare specialist hired by the USDA investigated and stated that the cats were being well-cared for.

The moral of this story? Good neighbor relations are paramount. You never know when a slight to one party might fester and cause the claws to come out. It is always better to negotiate directly than to spend years in court! Meowww!
Chat later!

Above photo of polydactyl cat at Ernest Hemingway House on Key West courtesy of WikiMedia Commons. Photographer: Averette. May 18, 2008.

Hemingway Cats

For Valentine's Day, our pal Miss P. gave us a box of note cards called, "Hemingway Cats" based on the paintings of Canadian artist Lucie Bilodeau (who currently lives in Massachusetts!). Besides being a great gift, it piqued my interest on this subject. I know, as most people do, that besides being able to string words together like nobody's business, Hemingway lived a colorful life. This intense attraction to cats, though, was news to me. So, I decided to do a little research.

Hemingway's obsession started when a sea captain presented him with a six-toed kitten whom he named "Snowball". Many of the cats now residing at the Hemingway Home and Museum are descendants of this first polydactyl, or multi-toed cat. All the cats that now reside on the Florida keys (well, most of them, at least) are descended from cats that originally were seafarers, since they were used aboard ships to control the mouse and rat populations. Hemingway apparently fell in love with the mitten-like paws of little Snowball and his entire estate soon became overrun with the little critter's bloodline.

Today, there are approximately 60 cats living at the Museum, about half of which are polydactyl, according to Wikipedia. Just to spice things up, Hemingway named each of his cats after a famous artist, celebrity or politician. The staff at the Hemingway Home and Museum have kept up this practice. Michael Palin, of Monty Python fame, writes of meeting a "marmalade tom" named Bill Clinton when he and his crew did their tour of the Home and Museum. He notes, as many other tourists who have visited the site have, that the cats are the most interesting part of the tour. Other famous names living on in furry infamy are those of Gertrude Stein, Lionel Barrymore, Audrey Hepburn, Emily Dickinson, "Hairy" Truman and the especially photogenic Archibald MacLeish.

The cats are all well taken care of, healthy, happy and roam the grounds freely. A little too freely, it seems; a dispute involving the museum, a neighbor's complaint and the United States Department of Agriculture nearly brought the Hemingway Cats' sojourn on the great man's estate to an end. More on that story tomorrow.
Chat later!

Above photo of "One of the many six-toed cats at the Ernest Hemingway House in Key West, Florida" by WKnight94, courtesy of WikiMedia Commons. Photo taken 10 August 2006.