I was recently reminded of three coalescing events that came together to create a humorous story and possibly set biologists in search of a mystery.

In 1995, I had a 5 year old son and a 21 year old son.

First, the older son bought his little brother a battery operated motorcycle. A police motorcycle with a siren and flashing lights.

Secondly, months later my little son and I bought a children’s movie called , The Mouse and the Motorcycle.

Lastly, we saw a mouse in the house!

Our house sat in the middle of five wooded acres and as many know a mice can enter through a hole the size of a dime. In the winter these little creatures of the forest find there way inside of food.

One evening we spotted one of these adorable little creatures with it cute nose, dark eyes and big ears. Really, if you look objectively at these little furry guys they are adorable.

Well, the rest of the story goes like this. Five-year old spots adorable mouse and is convinced he came to ride his motorcycle, just as the mouse in the video does. We are not allowed to trap and kill this adventurous police motorcycle seeking mouse.

The next day we proceed to the hardware store and purchase a live trap. That evening we bait the trap and voilà, 45 minutes later motorcycle-mouse is caught. Yes, he was adorable and disregarding all the pleas from the five year old to keep him. He was marched into the woods and released.

Problem solved… except maybe just to be sure, we set it again. Again, another mouse in short order was marched into the forest. And again. And again.

You get the picture here. Lots of mice evidently. We began searching for the draw into the house. All food items in paper boxes or accessible packing were tightly sealed in plastic containers. As we searched, we thought possibly they were getting into the trash. We pulled the bag out of the bin and took it outside.

To our surprise, the next morning there were two little little mice inside the trash can doing high jumps trying to escape the tall sides of the can.
The trash can was quickly marched into the forest. When a stick was placed into the can the furry little pests scurried up the stick and leaped off the end of the stick onto the forest floor below like cliff divers swan diving into the sea.

The next night, we threw some crackers in the bottom of the bin Score four. The next score three. The next five… you get the picture. All of these little furry friends, like the ones before, made their bold climb and free fall into the forest.

About this time, DrB begins to wonder are we catching the same mice over and over. I personally don’t believe it is possible as it is a long way back to the house. However, he believes they probably make it back to the house before we do.

The next night, the bait is set again. And again, three mice (not blind). To prove his theory, DrB takes some yellow model paint and paints stripes down each of their backs before taking them to make their death-defying leap.

The next night catch four. Again, yellow stripes and release. The next five, paint and release.

By this time, after a week we had caught and released around 30 mice and never did a yellow-striped one reappear. Our compassionate solution had run its course. We called a pest control company and the technician told me something that has stuck with me. “Where there is one, there is a hundred” and “a family of six mice can multiply into 60 over the course of three months”

In short order, the problem was solved. Now comes to the question that may never be answered.

Around that time King County was placing insect collection boxes on trees. We wondered, what if one day a biologist that came out to collect the boxes happened to see one of these yellow striped mice, maybe he’d still be out searching for this new breed even now.