KEY WEST, Fla., Oct. 19, 2007
Hemingway's Cats, Pampered By Uncle Sam
The Six-Toed Felines Of Key West Get Special Treatment -- With Your Tax Dollars
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Play CBS Video Video Dispute Over Hemingway's Cats After Ernest Hemingway died, his famous cats stuck around as his Key West home opened for tours. Now the USDA is spending tax dollars fighting for jurisdiction over the cats. Sharyl Attkisson reports.
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With the dispute entering its fifth year, the cats remain oblivious. (CBS)
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For a decade, Ernest Hemingway lived and wrote at his Key West home. His six-toed cats kept him company. (CBS)
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Blog Primary Source Armen Keteyian and his investigative team keep you informed daily on their blog.
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E-MAIL US CBS News Investigates E-mail Armen Keteyian and the investigation team with your story ideas.
And things were pretty much the way for about 40 years - until a complaint from a disgruntled volunteer brought in the federal government, and investigators from the U.S. Department of Agriculture who insisted they have jurisdiction over the cats, CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports.
The complaint was about some of the cats, now numbering nearly four dozen, roaming off the property, which it turns out they were entitled to do since Key West has no leash law.
But once USDA got involved, it argued Hemingway cats were "exhibits" and needed the special protection of the same federal laws governing a zoo or circus.
Cara Higgins is an attorney for the Hemingway House and its feline population.
“They’re not sold, they're not transferred, they’re not moved, they’re not disrupted, they’re not eaten,” Higgins said. “I can’t imagine why the USDA, why the federal government, would have an interest in a handful of local cats.”
First, USDA wanted the cats rounded up nightly and caged, according to the Hemingway House's CEO, Mike Morawski.
“Our vet who comes on the property weekly thought that was extremely traumatic for any of our cats, much less the cats that have lived on this property the last 10 to 15 years of their life,” Morawski said.
He said he made one change after another, but the USDA demands kept coming.
CBS News tried to scratch out exactly how many of your tax dollars are being spent on the whole cat fight, but USDA wouldn’t provide the documentation or agree to an interview.
So Attkisson sifted through the litter and came up with this:
USDA agents even went so far as to go undercover.
“They pose as tourists and get pictures and surreptitiously tape the cats,” Higgins said.
Has this all been a little silly on their part?
“It’s been a lot silly,” Morawski said.
Recently, the USDA hired its own cat expert. Even she made the Hemingway cats sound like some of the luckiest felines on the planet saying they're, “well cared for, healthy and content."
With the dispute entering its fifth year, the Key West sunset is unchanged and the cats oblivious.
But if they cared about the antics of humans, they might be amused by how much of your tax money is being spent trying to improve their charmed lives.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Add a Comment See all 63 Comments
- Wow! An all expense paid trip to beautiful, expensive, exclusive Key West and you don''t even have to wear a tie; what bureaucrat could resist? That it is the Agriculture Department is the biggest laugh. Much better than being sent to Afganistan to teach farmers how to grow a US Government approved crop, a duty of the same department.
The next President will be a Democrat.
Chose wisely. Chose Richardson. - Reply to this comment
- and what have they spent on feeding the homeless in florida? sblake63,you are a heartless twit. if you were cracked on the head and left in an alley and you couldn''t remember your right hand from your left, would your relatives come by and mock you for making "bad decisions"? "why were you crossing THAT street?" who works harder, paris hilton or some waitress with 3 jobs? medical bills are a huge reason people go fritz on the money path. if you don''t know about any of this stuff first hand, just get down on your ugly narrow minded boney knees, or fat padded knees, and thank GOD! some people are rich in compassion, and others keep their wealth in the bricks and mortar bank.if you are such a holy saint, next homeless person you see, HIRE him or her for DECENT wages....check first to see if they really should be IN THE HOSPITAL! if you ever win the good samaritan badge we will all go into 6 minutes of shock and silence. do you remember the beggar lazarus in the Bible? the ANGELS came and took him to heaven, but the rich man who should have and could have, but wouldn''t and didn''t died and "opened his eyes in hell."
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- creeper: It seems alot of these posters just read the headline and not the story...or if they read the story they don''t comprehend what they read.
Of course this is just a scam to enjoy a vacation to Key West while so called investigating. Can''t pull the wool...or in this case fur...over our eyes!!
Leave the cats alone. I have two grey cats with six toes on each front paw...are they valuable now? - Reply to this comment
- Obviously, the powers that be at CBSNews don''t read these comments. If they did, they''d have changed that rabble-rousing headline after they read my first.
It isn''t the cats that are living high off the hog, coutesy of the taxpayers. It''s the employees of the USDA, who now have a convenient excuse to spend a couple of days in Key West at taxpayers'' expense.
CBS, you should be ashamed of that headline. - Reply to this comment
- Cats with six toes?! I want one!!!
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- WE HAVE A 5 TOED CAT. HE HAS FIVE TOES ON ALL PAWS, HIS NAME IS BEARMAN.
HEY, UNCLE SUGAR WE NEED CAT FOOD AND LITTER. DON''T WORRY THOUGH, HE''S BEEN FIXED. HE ALSO HAS FELION AIDS. HE WAS SUPPOSE TO HAVE DIED 4 YEARS AGO. WE WANT NEED ANY BACK SUPPORT. AWAITING FOOD. - Reply to this comment
- Posted by sblake63
There is rage you better believe it you sociopathic piece of waste. The truth be told, many of the posters disgusted by the injustices in this country have one helluva of lot more material wealth than your simple nothing self.
It''s not fools like yourself they advocate for. They advocate for an america to not regress to the dysfunction you and the worthless trash like yourselves have been labeling the "liberals." Karl Marx''s childhood home btw you moron is in Trier, Germany. Hardly a poor youth, he exploited conditions like the pigs you elect are exploiting conditions. The so called "liberals" in this country are largely the ones who make things happen while the losers like yourself sit on the little nothing pile of sh*it your kind call wealth.
The fact that you refer to a "bigger car" or a "bigger boat" as examples of wealth reveals what a shallow nothing you are. The world''s greats are not made of your parasitic kind. Sociopaths are gaining access in todays america and sociopaths have sucked the life blood out of societies of past. - Reply to this comment
- Whatever it has though most likely will render you poor trailer trash when surrounded by a sufficient number of billionaires who start telling you when and where you are allowed to P*iss
---clarification...whatever "great" wealth you feel you have acheived single handedly will not be enough upside the global elite. You will be trailer trash with the rest the masses. Maybe you''''ll have an extra loaf of bread and a gun to shoot at your neighbors with.
Posted by l8c6 at 04:11 PM : Oct 20, 2007
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See the class envy rage in this dude posts. Terms like "neo con" "fasist" etc etc etc. Its smacks of 1918 Karl Marx revolutionary bull all over again. Except in this day and age they call themselvs "moderates" "democrats". Crying and whining because the Jones next door have a bigger boat or a bigger car and raging against an imaginary evil force that keeps them "poor". Red China could use a few like the poster "l8c6". - Reply to this comment
- Whatever it has though most likely will render you poor trailer trash when surrounded by a sufficient number of billionaires who start telling you when and where you are allowed to P*iss
---clarification...whatever "great" wealth you feel you have acheived single handedly will not be enough upside the global elite. You will be trailer trash with the rest the masses. Maybe you''ll have an extra loaf of bread and a gun to shoot at your neighbors with. - Reply to this comment
- You''''re right Klingon69...Because the parents are too lazy to better themselves, spend more time w/ a crack pipe than buying groceries, and more time taping their threesomes than time spent with their kids, we end up paying for our kids AND their kids - bash the statement all you want libs - you got us into this mess in the first place...take care of everyone, don''''t make anyone HAVE to figure it out on their own or work hard...just give it all to them free (including all the illegals, which hurts our country more than you will ever admit)
Posted by sbbm
Right wing fascist neo cons are such a joke. Uh, whose been in office playing dictator for uh, 7 years now and who has dominated both houses uh, for more than the better part of 13 years. Whose rhetoric has pushed for privatization of the commons allowing sociopathic fascists to buy the airwaves and dominate them uh, since Reagan the prime mascot of the neo con movement started attacking a government system that once had a better chance of representing the greatest number deregulating it by becoming the representative government and disassembling it to represent a privatized elite ruling class. Republicans drown in their own self centered narrow mindedness. The vast majority of the neo cons won''t be able to lift their leg high enough to P*iss with the global elite dogs that their voting record has paved the way for. - Reply to this comment
- Oh by the way, some will think I am straying for the subject of the "cats" nope. Which is a bigger waste of goverment cash? Theres no way the goverment could ever spend more on 1000 cats "care" then what they spend on worthless food stamp programs and health care for people who have "screwed up" their lives and caused themselves to be in a bad economic condition.
I say feed the kitties and cut "SCHIP", "FOOF STAMPS" and all these do nothing programs that over the course of 50 years would have cost us TRILLIONS of dollars. Poverty isnt an "injustice". Its a condition caused by a life of bad decisions, handed down from generation to generation. In America is a CHOICE. I have seen poor people who finally got sick of their situation and pull themselves out of it. But most of them have a chip on their shoulder and blame the middle class, rasicm and the rich for their own mistakes.
Never seen a cat smoke crack or murder a gas station attendant LMAO! - Reply to this comment
- Ok, I have seen enough of people blasting conservatives, time for "no holes barred" response LOL.
So, I want one of you liberal "community, social & global thinkers" explain to me why MY money should be re-distributed to people who don''t work or who have NOT lived their lives well enough to make it to the "middle class". What makes ME as a taxpayer responsible for feeding & providing medical care for YOUR children because YOU didn''t get a proper education and perhaps maybe you got a raw deal because of YOUR parents. Again while all of that may be true, somebody tell me how that''s MY problem?
Oh, I am sure I will get replies "typical republican", "selfish, greedy blah blah blah". I have news for you. If I choose to give to the poor, it should be my choice via direct contributions, giving money or food to the via a church, other organization or myself!. I also have more news for you - I do all the time. But some "ambiguous" government agency doling out cash or services to people for the most part STEAL the services is plain RETARDED!
You know the communist movement started out with this hyper-sensitivity of how much certain people earn, what they own is the so called fairness of it versus the poor. Its happening all over again articles blasting CEOs for making too much, people wanting to make sure the so called rich are paying way more than anybody else (Punishing success). Keep your cash people, vote GOP in 2008! - Reply to this comment
- So how does a bogus investigation equal "Pampered by Uncle Sam"???????
Talk about misleading, - Reply to this comment
- The United States of America has given its solemn word and pledge to these Hemingway cats.
If we cut and run from them now, the terrorists have won.
Long Live the Hemingway Cats. - Reply to this comment
- If you were a federal agent, wouldn''t you go on an all expenses paid "fact finding mission" to sunny Key West? Of course this is going to drag on forever - until someone puts an end to the all expenses paid vacations under the guise of "work".
I like the part where they were "undercover" too. Undercover how? Drinking Margaritas by the side of the pool? "Spying" on the cats from the golf course? Did they bring their spouses and kids too? You know - to really complete the disguise?
What a fraud our government has become!! - Reply to this comment
- It''s the same 10th grade drivel here. Some of you show no evidence of having gotten that far
Ha Haaaaaaaa - Reply to this comment
- Federal government can afford it. We spend a lot of money on nuttier things.
Long live The Hemingway Cats! - Reply to this comment
- I think its a scam by the government to give its employees an all expense paid trip to the exotic keys... at OUR COST!!!!
- Reply to this comment
- Lets see our goverment can pay for cats but not our kids to have medical .. Why didn''''t the peice of sheet Bush veto this ???
Posted by maedean at 12:05 AM : Oct 20, 2007
I guess you didn''t/couldn''t read the story. The cats are not having taxpayer money spent on them. Taxpayer money is being thrown away on unnecessary spying visits by government employees. The cats don''t benefit from it. And, if they did, I''d be glad. I''m sick and tired of paying for other people''s kids to be educated, given health care, etc. at my expense. And I''m sick and tired of being told what we can watch, say, do and think, based on how it might affect some kid, somewhere. Bottom line, fu(k the kids and their goody-two shoes parents who want the rest of us to spend all our time and money looking after them. - Reply to this comment
- I am sorry but why are we wasting time on this. I have visited the Hemingway home. We pay to go in there. The cat are happy. Leave them alone. Why do we need to waste the tax prayer money to send agents to visit this place, not once but 14 times. This is an historic city, rich in history stop trying to change it.
- Reply to this comment
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