CHICAGO CITY HALL (WBBM Newsradio) -- Early results from the latest effort to get Chicago off the list of America's rattiest cities suggest it might be paying off.
This all started back in August, when some neighbors in Lincoln Park were invited to pick up the latest innovation in eradicating rats: contraceptive pellets.
"It's rat birth control," Ald. Timmy Knudsen told colleagues during a City Council committee meeting Tuesday. "I could eat it, it wouldn't harm me," but it makes rats sterile.
Ald. Knudsen (43rd Ward) explained the pilot was a response to concerns that using rat poison posed too much of a danger to other animal life: "This carries real risks for the birds, pets and other wildlife in the 43rd Ward and throughout the city."
Lincoln Park Zoo director of governmental affairs Alyssa Berman-Cutler echoed that: "We had a really terrible incident a few years ago in Lincoln Park where some beloved birds were killed by rat poison."
Berman-Cutler said some early findings are in: "We think we are seeing some reductions from the camera traps thus far ... my scientists would say don't get too excited, they really want to see the full data."
And Ald. Knudsen told colleague Ald. Bill Conway (34th Ward) that based on results in other cities, the next few months could be key.
"You start to see the impact, the rat population start to go down around months six through eight ... and then they go down drastically after that," said Ald. Knudsen.
The pilot is set to run through this summer, and it could be made available for expansion after that.