A number of the 55,000 balls used throughout the Wimbledon tennis event are yearly upcycled into houses for threatened harvest mice.
Because the annual Wimbledon tennis championships performed out from June to July in 2025, social media customers claimed that the hundreds of tennis balls used on the event get second lives as houses for tiny mice going through habitat loss.
For instance, one Instagram consumer shared an image (archived) with textual content that learn: “55,000 tennis balls are changed into houses for harvest mice after Wimbledon.”
The caption of the put up, which had amassed almost 20,000 likes as of this writing, claimed that the balls “are donated to conservation teams” that reduce out small entrances for the mice to enter in “grassy meadows and hedgerows.”
Related iterations of the rumor appeared on Facebook (archived) and Reddit (archived).
In brief, whereas Wimbledon has beforehand donated a few of its tennis balls for conservation teams to make use of as houses for harvest mice, these donations seem to have been one-offs. For that reason, we’ve got rated this declare as outdated.
The oldest supply for the alleged donation appeared to return from a 2001 BBC article, which on the time acknowledged that among the event’s 36,000 tennis balls had been donated to The Wildlife Trusts — a British federation of wildlife conservation charities — to be recycled as houses for harvest mice. A 2003 BBC article featured a small follow-up be aware to that story, stating that Wimbledon had donated 350 tennis balls to The Wildlife Trusts two years earlier.
Snopes contacted The Wildlife Trusts and Wimbledon to substantiate if the event has continued to make such donations and, if that’s the case, for particulars about what’s included in them. A spokesperson for The Wildlife Trusts mentioned: “Sadly, the tennis ball story may be very old-fashioned as we have not labored with Wimbledon on this approach for a while.” Equally, a Wimbledon spokesperson confirmed that the story about harvest mice was an outdated one.
In 2011, The Guardian newspaper reported that Wimbledon once more donated tennis balls to accommodate mice, this time on the request of an aquarium in northern England. The Guardian didn’t say what number of tennis balls had been donated on the time.
It was not attainable to seek out newer articles in regards to the event making such donations, though other tennis clubs within the U.Okay. have reportedly gifted tennis balls for a similar goal.
Whereas not endangered globally, harvest mice are thought of “Close to Threatened” within the U.Okay., based on the Mammal Society, a British charity. Harvest mice are Britain’s smallest rodent, which suggests
Throughout the event, Wimbledon sells its used tennis balls on-site, and the proceeds go to the Wimbledon Foundation, its charity group. Wimbledon has been promoting its used tennis balls for the final a number of years, based on the event’s spokesperson.
Wimbledon’s web site didn’t embody any data on the destiny of unused and unsold tennis balls, however Keith Prowse, a sports activities hospitality firm that companions with Wimbledon, mentioned they’re donated or recycled within the weeks and months after the event finishes. Keith Prowse’s web site added: “Beforehand, among the balls have been donated to the UK Wildlife Belief who reduce them up and used them to make houses for harvest mice!”
