The next time someone from the Agriculture Dept. says they need more food inspectors to control e. coli outbreaks, someone should ask how much they are spending on herding cats:
Mr. Hemingway spent most of the 1930s in Key West completing some of his best work. Now, his former house at 907 Whitehead Street is a museum open to daily tours and the occasional wedding. It also continues to be home to 40 to 50 six-toed cats that are a living legacy of Hemingway. As in Hemingway’s time, the cats are allowed to roam and lounge at will in the house and on the one-acre grounds.
At some point several years ago, a museum visitor expressed concern about the cats’ care. The visitor took that concern all the way to the US Department of Agriculture and, literally, made a federal case out of it.
Soon USDA inspectors showed up in Key West. They said that if the museum wanted to display cats it needed an exhibitor’s license as required under the federal Animal Welfare Act. (That’s the same law that regulates circuses, zoos, and traveling dog and pony shows.)
Federal officials advised the museum that it also needed to take action to: Confine the cats in individual cages each night, or construct a higher fence around the property, or install an electric wire atop the existing brick wall, or hire a night watchman to keep an eye on the cats. The museum was ordered to tag each cat for identification, and add additional elevated resting surfaces within the cat’s enclosures. USDA officials also advised that the museum would face fines for noncompliance.
The museum appealed to a Federal court, and lost.
Systemic Failure 
Cats shouldn’t be allowed outdoors anyway (see the Humane Society, which agrees). They are, technically, an *invasive alien predator*.