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I believe a good answer would be a drug - embedded in food that would chemically sterilize them (either male or female or both)... Then allow them to continue compete in their local semi-wild environment for food and territory... helping to keep the population in check via food competition. This would greatly reduce the population of feral cats over 5 to 10 years... There are problems with this idea - but the problems could be worked out...

As a side note — I have had two cats father and daughter) who displayed feral behavior - even though both had been totally domestic and pampered all their lives from the time they were born ... Yet they displayed the wariness and suspicion of humans to the extreme just as feral cats do. They were not necessarily mean but could not be handled... I have had many cats over the years - observed and adopted quite a few feral cats - so I know the difference in behavior... The daughter is still alive and she bobs and weaves when I attempt to touch her and nips my hand... Many cats display some of this behavior but not to this extreme.... I believe feral behavior is largely due to a gene that gets turned on when the cats encounters dire conditions of survival. And may accidentally get turned on due to an unknown condition or set of conditions.