|
We always welcome the chance to debunk popular misconceptions and pounced eagerly on your question. Of course, to tell the truth, we had no idea that lemmings didn't really commit group suicide until we launched a formal investigation into the matter. We began with a search on "lemmings suicide." The first few results advertised an intriguing sounding book titled Do Lemmings Commit Suicide by Dennis Chitty. Promising to uncover the ugly and inconclusive side of scientific research, it sounded like a fascinating read but didn't immediately provide our answer. We moved on. Our first clue that lemmings don't commit group suicide came when we
spotted a web page from the Urban Legends Reference Pages in our results. We've encountered this site before while researching questions for Ask Yahoo! and have come to rely on its unceremonious presentation of the cold hard facts. The page claims that during the filming of a 1958 Disney documentary, White Wilderness, the film crew imported lemmings into Alberta, Canada, (not a natural habitat for the animals) then herded a group of a few dozen lemmings over a cliff and into the water in order to stage a mass migration and demonstrate their reported suicidal behavior. While Disney didn't fabricate this scientific myth, the film certainly helped fuel the misconception that lemmings commit group suicide when their
population level is too high. In reality, however, lemmings are not that altruistic. The animals are known for cyclical population explosions that occur approximately every four years. During such a peak, the population may multiple a thousandfold and food becomes scarce, forcing enormous groups of the rodents to migrate to newer territories. While migrating, some lemmings do fall off cliffs or drown, but these deaths are accidental and are caused by venturing into unfamiliar areas, rather than suicidal tendencies. A thorough review of the remaining search results failed to turn up any evidence that the critters do indeed off themselves en masse. Our conclusion? Rather than group suicide, what we have
here is a classic case of misinformation coupled with a Hollywood conspiracy.
|
