By Tim Binnall
In a wild story out of New Hampshire, an animal shelter has taken in hundreds of mice that were turned over by a man who told the organization that he had become overwhelmed by the rapidly reproducing rodents. According to a statement from the state's Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the jaw-dropping case came to light on Monday when the unnamed pet owner visited one of their adoption centers to surrender a staggering 73 of the critters. Explaining that he was "overwhelmed by the sheer number of mice in his possession," the man revealed that the dozens of rodents he had brought to the site that day were a proverbial drop in the bucket as there were believed to be nearly 1,000 of the animals remaining at his residence waiting to be rescued.
Over the next few days, SPCA staff recovered approximately 400 additional mice from the home with hundreds more set to be taken in by the shelter as soon as they can find the space to accommodate all the rodents. Part of the reason why the man had so many mice is that they were housed in a haphazard fashion that allowed the creatures to reproduce continually. "We have never seen anything like this," said Savannah Alcero, the group's Director of Animal and Veterinary Services, "and the longer we wait to get all of the mice out of their terrible living conditions, the greater the likelihood is that the numbers will continue to grow."
As one might imagine, the organization finds itself as overwhelmed as the man who brought the mice to them in the first place as simply sheltering and feeding all of the critters has proven to be an enormous challenge. As such, the group is calling on the public for help in the hopes that people will take some of the wayward rodents off of their hands. To that end, they indicated that the animals are "not common field mice," but domesticated creatures that "are entertaining and relatively easy to care for." That's assuming, of course, that one does not keep them all in the same habitat and create the same situation that befell the man who originally owned them.