Volunteer groups trained by the New York City Feral Cats Initiative have been catching groups (or "colonies") of the city’s feral cats. The usual goal is to spay or neuter the animals, treat them for any diseases and return them to their urban stomping grounds.
But occasionally the cats aren’t welcome, or construction threatens to displace them. When that happens, they're plunked down in other areas with rat problems. Colony managers ensure that the cats are well-fed, and the animals can go back to what they love: hunting for fun.
Four of these cats have been taken to live around the loading area of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Rats have been a nuisance for years, drawn there by the garbage the loading dock generates.
"We used to hire exterminators, but nature has a better solution," said Rebecca Marshall, the sustainability manager at the center. "And cats don't cost anything."
The four cats at the Javits Center were brought there about two years ago. Though they certainly catch a rat or two, their job isn't necessarily to solve the rat problem through violence, but deterrence: rats, wisely enough, don’t like the smell of cats or cat waste, and rats won't give birth in places where it is prevalent, Jane Hoffman, president of the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC Animals, said.
The Mayor's Alliance, a privately funded association of animal rescue groups and shelters, supports the Feral Cats Initiative. It estimates that up to half a million feral and stray cats live in New York City.
New York's City Hall announced in July that it would spend $2.9 million on a new vermin-eradication, a huge increase in funding, New York Nonprofit Media reported. The plan involves a "scientific approach of attacking rat reservoirs."
The Mayor's Alliance is not opposed to killing rats, according to the NYN Media report. But they’ll just go on quietly bringing cats to join the fight. And they're not the only ones: Disneyland in California has had a cat colony for years, NYN Media reports. The LA Police Department uses feral cats to control some of their storehouses, and in Chicago, using feral cat colonies to control rats is commonplace – and viewed as very effective.
Not everyone finds feral cat colonies harmless. Cats are notorious killers of small wildlife and are especially threatening to birds. And opponents also say that as long as New York's waste problem goes unsolved, rats will never been eradicated.
Hoffman maintains that, though they may not be the whole solution, cats can certainly play a role in rat management. "We have more cats than we can find homes for," she said to NYN Media. "Why don't we look at innovative ways to utilize what is essentially a resource?"
