During each Wimbledon tournament, tennis balls are replaced at frequent intervals to prevent them from becoming too warm and affecting the ball’s physical dynamics. As a result, more than 50,000 tennis balls are used in the tournament. Now, an animal conservation group is turning the used tennis balls into tiny homes for harvest mice. Typically, harvest mice — which weight a little as 4 grams — make their homes out of shredded grass and reeds. In recent years, their habitat has come under increasing threat from intensive farming methods and yearly floods. The used tennis balls make excellent, waterproof homes for the tiny rodents. A small hole is cut into each ball, and then they are attached to poles at about 3 feet off the ground. At that height their nests are relatively safe from birds of prey and weasels, which are too big to get through the hole.
