Hemingway's 6-toed cats can stay in Key West

KEY WEST, Fla. — The famed six-toed cats at Ernest Hemingway's island home aren't going anywhere.

Officials at the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum said Thursday that an agreement had been reached with the federal government that lets the 50 or so cats continue roaming the grounds, ending a five-year battle that could have resulted in them being removed or caged.

The cats descend from one cat, Snowball, given to the novelist in 1935. All the felines, which freely wander the grounds of the Spanish colonial house, carry the gene for six toes, but not all show the trait.

The home is where the Nobel Prize-winning author wrote "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "To Have and Have Not" and is one of the most popular visitor attractions in the Florida Keys.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) had wanted the museum to obtain an animal-exhibition license that would require employees to "protect" the cats from contact with spectators and cage them after their daily "performance" ends when the front gate closes at 5 p.m.

Last year, on-site manager Jacque Sands told the Los Angeles Times, "Our cats do not do tricks. They don't do flips and jump through hoops. They're our pets!"

The USDA confirmed the agreement. The agency had threatened to fine the museum $200 a day per cat — about $10,000 — because it didn't have the proper animal-exhibition license and couldn't qualify for one, primarily because the animals weren't enclosed. The museum has installed a fence to keep the animals on the 1-acre property.

From 2003 until last October, a series of meetings between USDA and museum officials proved fruitless, said Michael Morawski, president and chief executive of the museum.

About a year ago, Morawski and a USDA deputy administrator agreed to hire an independent animal behaviorist to make recommendations. Dr. Terry Curtis, from the University of Florida's College of Veterinary Medicine, said in a report that the cats appeared "well-cared for, healthy and content" and suggested the special fence that was installed.

Information from Seattle Times archives

is included in this report.