DUNNING — Animal welfare groups are partnering with residents in Dunning to turn an exploding population of feral cats into a regimented colony of furry rat hunters.
After successfully deploying their "trap-neuter-release" strategy in other parts of the city, the advocates are hoping to sterilize 100 cats in the area before breeding season next spring. Doing so, they say, would temper noisy and aggressive street cats and train them squarely against the rodent population.
"By curbing the kitten population, you can prevent a lot of undue hardship for feral cats," about half of whom die before reaching adulthood, said Nellie Jaskewycz, a veteran cat-trapper who set her sights on Dunning last month.
"But if every neighborhood has a controlled colony of healthy cats that they're feeding, and they're following some rules, it can bring a lot of benefits," she added.
That was the gist of Jaskewycz's pitch to Jason Quaglia, a board member of the Dunning Neighborhood Organization who reached out to her after she began floating the idea earlier this fall.
"I always felt like animal control was one of those city services that's really under-funded, so this is a really cool opportunity for residents of Dunning to take care of our own problems without relying on the city," Quaglia said. "So when we met, I was really excited about the service she was providing."
The Tree House Humane Society, a Chicago-based cat rescue organization, had helped established a colony of neutered cats in Dunning in 2011, but since then "a whole bunch of new cats have descended on the area," according to program manager Liz Houtz. She estimates that about 200 feral cats are living within a half-square mile area of Dunning.
"We get a lot of complaints about noise from cats who are mating, fighting or eliminating in different areas," Houtz said. "But once you sterilize, they become much more manageable, and the potency of their urine even goes down."
Colonies of neutered cats have also proven a remarkably effective way to keep rats at bay, sketching out a cheap and efficient strategy to tackle a growing problem for the city at large, Jaskewycz said.
"In areas we've seen with [neutered cat] colonies, rodent populations are basically non-existent," she said. "I live in one of those colonies, in Irving Park, and I've never seen any kind of rat or rodent — and this is a half-block from two restaurants."
Last week, Quaglia, Houtz and Jaskewycz combined to host a community meeting for residents interested in the delicate process of trapping stray cats, bringing them to a treatment center for sterilization and releasing them back into the neighborhood.
It starts by setting long cages at sites identified as feeding centers and laying out newspapers with a trail of tuna fish, Houtz said. After the cats are fixed and re-released, they're fed periodically through strategically-placed bins specially crafted to keep other kinds of critters out.
Eleven people showed up to the meeting, Quaglia said, more than he expected. Between the new volunteers and other residents who have taken it upon themselves to join the effort, about 20 cats have been trapped, neutered and released in the area so far.
But as the campaign ramps up, the trappers are looking for ways to keep it well-funded. The cages and feeding bins aren't free, and as of Friday their crowd-funding page had raised just $275.
The team is on the hunt to get their colony up and running before their winter window closes, Jaskewycz said.
"It's critical that we do this now, because once spring comes, the [feral cat] population is going to be double," she said. "Cats can breed at just four months old, so kittens are going to be having kittens."
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