Lemming behaviour, as in The Lemming With the Locket (US 9)

Daniel van Eijmeren dve at kabelfoon.nl
Sun Sep 14 01:32:50 CEST 2003


On the Disney section of a site titled "Urban Legends Reference Pages"
(http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.htm), I found some 
information about the natural behaviour of lemmings, which contradicts
the lemming behaviour as shown in (for example) Barks's "The Lemming 
With the Locket" (US 9). I'm curious for comments.

Here's the text of the page, including some (IMO) disturbing information 
about lemmings being misused for a film: 

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White Wilderness

Claim: During the filming of the 1958 Disney nature documentary White 
Wilderness, the film crew induced lemmings into jumping off a cliff and 
into the sea in order to document their supposedly suicidal behavior. 

Status: True. 

Origins: Lemming suicide is fiction. Contrary to popular belief, lemmings 
do not periodically hurl themselves off of cliffs and into the sea. 
Cyclical explosions in population do occasionally induce lemmings to 
attempt to migrate to areas of lesser population density. When such a 
migration occurs, some lemmings die by falling over cliffs or drowning
in lakes or rivers. These deaths are not deliberate "suicide" attempts, 
however, but accidental deaths resulting from the lemmings' venturing into 
unfamiliar territories and being crowded and pushed over dangerous ledges. 
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. 

<Picture: I'm not gonna jump off. YOU jump off!>Disney's White Wilderness 
was filmed in Alberta, Canada, which is not a native habitat for lemmings 
and has no outlet to the sea. Lemmings were imported for use in the film, 
purchased from Inuit children by the filmmakers. The Arctic rodents were 
placed on a snow-covered turntable and filmed from various angles to 
produce a "migration" sequence; afterwards, the helpless creatures were 
transported to a cliff overlooking a river and herded into the water. White 
Wilderness does not depict an actual lemming migration -- at no time are 
more than a few dozen lemmings ever shown on the screen at once. The entire 
sequence was faked using a handful of lemmings deceptively photographed to 
create the illusion of a large herd of migrating creatures. 

Nine different photographers spent three years shooting and assembling 
footage for the various segments that comprise White Wilderness. It is not 
known whether Disney approved or knew about the activities of James R. Simon, 
the prinicipal photographer for the lemmings sequence. 

Nature documentaries are notoriously difficult to film, as wild animals are 
not terribly cooperative. Many nature shows and films of this era -- including 
Disney's "True-Life Adventure" movies and TV's Wild Kingdom -- staged events 
to capture exciting footage for their audiences. The sight of a few lemmings 
mistaking a lake or ocean for a stream and drowning after swimming out too far, 
or being pushed over a cliff during the frenzied rush of migration, has become 
the basis of a widespread belief that lemmings commit suicide en masse when 
their numbers grow too large. 

Last updated:   27 February 1996 

The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.htm 
Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2003
by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson 
This material may not be reproduced without permission 

Sources: 

Burnam, Tom.   More Misinformation. 
New York: Lippincott & Crowell, 1980.   ISBN 0-690-01685-9   (p. 140). 

Charle, Suzanne.   "Television; Hunting Wildlife with a Movie Camera." 
The New York Times.   13 March 1988   (p. B31). 

Corry, John.   "'Cruel Camera', About Animal Abuse." 
The New York Times.   24 March 1986   (p. C18). 

Ferry, Jon.   "Lemmings Commit Mass Murder, Not Mass Suicide." 
Reuters.   6 March 1992. 

Foreman, Judy.   "How & Why." 
The Boston Globe.   7 March 1994   (p. 30). 

Maltin, Leonard.   The Disney Films. 
Crown: New York., 1984.   ISBN 0-517-55407-0   (pp. 148-149). 

Poundstone, William.   Bigger Secrets. 
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1986.   ISBN 0-395-53008-3   (pp. 235-236). 

Sagi, Douglas.   "Scientists Demolish Lemming Legends." 
The Vancouver Sun.   21 February 1992   (Diary; p. D2). 

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--- Daniël


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