CEDAR RAPIDS - Volunteers in Cedar Rapids have a plan on how to handle the feral cat population in town.

Volunteers say there is really only one way to reduce the high number of feral cats in Cedar Rapids, the problem is, the best method is against city ordinance.

"I think it's beyond count, anything from 15,000 to 20,000. 25,000, maybe, there's a lot," says Janet Ashman of the Iowa Humane Alliance.

The Iowa Humane Alliance says those numbers aren't just from the flood, it's taken 50 years to get that high, the flood just made everything worse.

And the flood gave those cats more places to call home, and form a colony.

"They already have their own hierarchy. People think cats are independent, but not outside cats. It's a hard life, they band together and form colonies."

The Alliance says the best way to reduce the population is to trap the cats, spay or neuter them, and then release the cats back to their own colonies.

However, it's that releasing part that is against city ordinance, it's also the one piece that makes this approach work.

If the cats don't go back to their colony, others will move in, and the Alliance says the cycle of reproduction continues.

"They protect that territory, live out their lives and the kittens don't come, and over time the population drops through natural attrition," says Mary Blount with the Iowa Humane Alliance.

The group says it's humane and effective, it's just not fast. They are working with the city, and hope to have any issues resolved in the next few weeks.

The group says it will take years to really take care of the problem.