Battle Over Hemingway’s Cats

September 26th, 2008

The U.S. Department of Agriculture threatened to fine The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum $200 per day, per cat, if they didn’t rid the museum grounds of their resident six-toed cats. The cats all descended from ‘Snowball’ a moggie given to the writer Hemingway in 1935; they all carry the six-toe gene, but not all display the extra toe. To stop the cats from being removed or caged the museum had to fork out nearly $250,000 on lawyers fees and fencing to keep the animals enclosed on the one-acre site.