In 1958 Disney released a movie called "White Wilderness"; an epic documentary that took nine photographers three years to make. During this movie was rare footage of a lemming migration and lemmings throwing themselves off cliffs to drown in the sea. This is how everyone first learned the strange and anomalous way lemmings deal with their own population control.
Except that it was total bullshit. Fiction, if you will. But even today you will hear it from people and even read it as a matter of "fact" in books. Even the expression "like lemmings to the sea" was born from it. A "lemming" became slang for someone who would blindly follow someone else no matter what, even if it was an incredibly stupid thing to do, against all common sense, against self preservation.
The truth is lemmings do not and never did periodically hurl themselves off of cliffs and into the sea. Cyclical explosions in population do occasionally cause lemmings to migrate to areas of lesser population density. Pretty much any migratory animal will do this. When such a migration occurs, some lemmings might die by falling over cliffs or drowning in lakes or rivers Purely accident. You could just as easily say ants migrate and commit suicide by throwing themselves off hills or drowning themselves in puddles. These deaths are not deliberate "suicide" attempts, but just one of the ways Nature takes it's course when lemmings, or any animal, ventures into unfamiliar territories. Animals will fall off cliffs. Animals swimming will sometimes tire and drown. In fact, when the competition for food, space, or mates becomes too intense, lemmings are much more likely to kill each other than to kill themselves. They're basically the arctic version or rats. Maybe cuter.
Disney's 'White Wilderness' was filmed in Alberta, Canada, which is not even a native habitat for lemmings and which also has no outlet to the sea. This didn't deter Disney however, who for some reason got it into his head that, by gum, we were going to show a lemming migration in an area where lemmings didn't live and also show them hell bent on drowning themselves in the sea, which they didn't ever do, where there was no sea. The Studio's bright solution was to import wild-trapped lemmings from Manitoba for use in the film, purchased from Inuit children by the filmmakers. The lemmings were placed on a huge, snow-covered turntable and then filmed from various angles as they spun, ran and slid into each other. This pretty much made it look like a "migration" sequence showing a bunch of spinning, running, sliding lemmings. . Afterwards, instead of just letting the things go, they were transported to a cliff overlooking a river and herded over the edge, down into the water, where they drowned. Viola. Disney got his footage and the myth of the
Lemming Hurling Itself Off Cliffs To Commit Suicide was born.
This is how much people trusted Uncle Walt and the stuff that came out of Disney Studios back then. Disney Documentary was as good as God's Honest Wholesome Truth. People to this day will still refuse to believe this story if you tell it to them. Especially if you tell them that Dear Sweet Disney was the one who made this all up.
So, in short, "White Wilderness" is the basis, root and sole reason for the widespread belief that lemmings do in fact commit suicide en masse when their numbers grow too large. Why Disney decided to create this bizarre untrue 'fact' for their documentary' or why they had the sick idea to force them all to their death for the sake of a movie was never explained.
Editor's Note:
I copied this item from anomalies-unlimited.com. My late father was a Ranger in Banff National Park in Alberta during the 1950's, and often repeated this story pretty much as it's written here. Apparently it was a popular saloon tale of the day.
Though he didn't actually witness the infamous Lemming incident, Dad claimed to have been on hand for the filming of
"Charlie , the Lonesome Cougar",
during which he said the Disney crew "went through" at least 20 cougars before they were done.
thanks to http://www.islandnet.com/~trout/Archive/Lemmings.htm
EDIT COULD A MOD PLEASE MOVE THIS I HAVE NO CLUE HOW IT ENDED UP IN BF2S: SF
Except that it was total bullshit. Fiction, if you will. But even today you will hear it from people and even read it as a matter of "fact" in books. Even the expression "like lemmings to the sea" was born from it. A "lemming" became slang for someone who would blindly follow someone else no matter what, even if it was an incredibly stupid thing to do, against all common sense, against self preservation.
The truth is lemmings do not and never did periodically hurl themselves off of cliffs and into the sea. Cyclical explosions in population do occasionally cause lemmings to migrate to areas of lesser population density. Pretty much any migratory animal will do this. When such a migration occurs, some lemmings might die by falling over cliffs or drowning in lakes or rivers Purely accident. You could just as easily say ants migrate and commit suicide by throwing themselves off hills or drowning themselves in puddles. These deaths are not deliberate "suicide" attempts, but just one of the ways Nature takes it's course when lemmings, or any animal, ventures into unfamiliar territories. Animals will fall off cliffs. Animals swimming will sometimes tire and drown. In fact, when the competition for food, space, or mates becomes too intense, lemmings are much more likely to kill each other than to kill themselves. They're basically the arctic version or rats. Maybe cuter.
Disney's 'White Wilderness' was filmed in Alberta, Canada, which is not even a native habitat for lemmings and which also has no outlet to the sea. This didn't deter Disney however, who for some reason got it into his head that, by gum, we were going to show a lemming migration in an area where lemmings didn't live and also show them hell bent on drowning themselves in the sea, which they didn't ever do, where there was no sea. The Studio's bright solution was to import wild-trapped lemmings from Manitoba for use in the film, purchased from Inuit children by the filmmakers. The lemmings were placed on a huge, snow-covered turntable and then filmed from various angles as they spun, ran and slid into each other. This pretty much made it look like a "migration" sequence showing a bunch of spinning, running, sliding lemmings. . Afterwards, instead of just letting the things go, they were transported to a cliff overlooking a river and herded over the edge, down into the water, where they drowned. Viola. Disney got his footage and the myth of the
Lemming Hurling Itself Off Cliffs To Commit Suicide was born.
This is how much people trusted Uncle Walt and the stuff that came out of Disney Studios back then. Disney Documentary was as good as God's Honest Wholesome Truth. People to this day will still refuse to believe this story if you tell it to them. Especially if you tell them that Dear Sweet Disney was the one who made this all up.
So, in short, "White Wilderness" is the basis, root and sole reason for the widespread belief that lemmings do in fact commit suicide en masse when their numbers grow too large. Why Disney decided to create this bizarre untrue 'fact' for their documentary' or why they had the sick idea to force them all to their death for the sake of a movie was never explained.
Editor's Note:
I copied this item from anomalies-unlimited.com. My late father was a Ranger in Banff National Park in Alberta during the 1950's, and often repeated this story pretty much as it's written here. Apparently it was a popular saloon tale of the day.
Though he didn't actually witness the infamous Lemming incident, Dad claimed to have been on hand for the filming of
"Charlie , the Lonesome Cougar",
during which he said the Disney crew "went through" at least 20 cougars before they were done.
thanks to http://www.islandnet.com/~trout/Archive/Lemmings.htm
EDIT COULD A MOD PLEASE MOVE THIS I HAVE NO CLUE HOW IT ENDED UP IN BF2S: SF
Last edited by Marlboroman82 (2006-10-03 20:44:33)
