Are wild cats the answer to rat infestations?

      Cats are not strangers to killing rats. Their work as pest exterminators helped them navigate the seven seas, eliminating rats on ships as far back as 9,000 years ago.

Centuries of domestication have not dulled cats' desire to kill rats, and as rat populations swell in some cities, those cities are turning to feral cats to keep the rats in check.

Last November, a Chicago alderman, for example, suggested that the City's Street and Sanitation Department bring in feral cats to care for the city's rat population.

And the Windy City's rat population is a legitimate issue. Not only has the city been named the U.S.'s rattiest city by the Orkin pest control company for three years running, but Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced his 2018 budget would dedicate $ million and five crews dedicated to exterminating rats. But would those proposed feral cats be worthwhile? Could managed bands of cats help a city recover the same way one or two cats might keep a ship vermin-free?

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