Article from Today's Guardian - seems bit heavy handed/petty?

A catfight has broken out in America's southernmost town over the future of
some of its famous citizens - dozens of six-toed felines descended from a
pet belonging to the writer Ernest Hemingway.
It is thought 46 of the unusual cats roam the grounds of the author's former
home, which welcomes hundreds of thousands of visitors each year as a museum
to "Papa" and the classic novels he wrote there, including To Have and Have
Not and For Whom the Bell Tolls.

The US department of agriculture wants to fine the museum's owners up to
$200 (£107) a day for "exhibiting" the animals without a licence, according
to a lawsuit filed in Miami, but the trustees insist that tourists pay to
see the house, of which the cats are merely residents.
"They're comparing the Hemingway house to a circus or a zoo because there
are cats on the premises," said Cara Higgins, the museum's lawyer. "This is
not a travelling circus. These cats have been here for ever."

About half of the Hemingway cats are polydactyl, or mitten cats, meaning
they have extra toes on their front or back paws. Often named after actors,
artists and philosophers, current popular residents include Archibald
MacLeish, Pablo Picasso and Simone de Beauvoir.

Hemingway received a female called Snow White as a gift from a ship's
captain in Key West in 1935, and its descendants have enjoyed free rein at
the house since it opened as a museum in 1964, three years after the author
committed suicide.

The dispute has reached Miami's district court, where the museum wants a
federal judge to rule on whether it needs a licence under the Animal Welfare
Act.

"We're asking the judge to let us know whether this act applies to the cats,
and if so why that is if the animals are not in commerce," Ms Higgins said.
"If it's something to do with the number of cats, how many do we have to get
rid of to be in compliance?"

Steve Trogner, a guide at the Hemingway House, said the cats were hugely
popular with visitors. "They're unique. Each one has its own character, and
they're fiercely independent," he said.