Of lemmings, lockets, and lies(hoaxes)

[Martin Olsen]

----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "L. Schulte" <lschulte at sfstoledo.org>
> Subject: Disney and Lemmings
[...]
> Of interest particularly to the Scandinavians here is an article on 
> lemmings today in my local newspaper (Toledo Blade) and the hoax that 
> Disney Studios invented in 1958 about mass suicide among lemmings.  The 
> Disney film was produced as part of the "True Life Adventures" series, and 
> remains fairly fixed despite exposés over the last 20 years about the 
> hoax.  For some reason the producers thought lemmings occasionally 
> committed mass suicide as a solution to over-population: the article states 
> that at rare times lemmings in Norway migrate, and that at times some might 
> be forced off cliffs or riverbanks during the migrations.  This apparently 
> struck the film-makers as a great cinematic episode: they hired Alaskans to 
> trap lemmings, then in Alberta, Canada they deliberately panicked the 
> lemmings and filmed them running off a riverbank, then claimed this was a 
> scene of the lemming mass suicide in Norway!
> There is still a phrase in American English today "like lemmings to the 
> sea" meaning people who mindlessly follow everyone else towards disaster.
> Was there not also a Duck Tales episode about lemmings rushing to the sea? 
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> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 14:17:48 +0100
> From: Olaf Solstrand <olaf at andebyonline.com>
> Subject: Re: Disney and Lemmings
> To: "L. Schulte" <lschulte at sfstoledo.org>
> Cc: dcml at stp.ling.uu.se
> Message-ID: <1067606268.3fa260fcbb812 at imp.webhuset.no>
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> 
> > Was there not also a Duck Tales episode about lemmings rushing to the sea? 
> 
> At least there was a Carl Barks story. A beautiful one. "The Lemming with the 
> Locket".
> 
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> 

I am in no position to question the fact that the Disney Studios invented a 'hoax' about the behaviour of lemmings in 1958, although I see the description given by L. Schulte more as a description of un-ethic behaviour of a movie production team who deliberately drove a vast number of lemmings to their death(s) to get a point through. (This fact is of course not a proof that lemmings do not behave in the described manner in nature! Also this statement is not meant to say that I believe they do - as I have no way to know!)
Barks' story 'The Lemming With the Locket' was published in Uncle Scrooge #9 with cover date March 1955, so Carl Barks obviously could not have known that 'True Life Adventure' when he wrote and drew that story in 1954. 
I find it hard to believe that the mass-suicide motive was invented by Carl Barks for this story, so my belief is that Carl Barks had his knowledge about the (alleged) behaviour of lemmings from another source. (Could it be an issue of National Geographic?)
At least, this view on the life (and death) of lemmings is older than the Disney True Life Adventures movie from 1958, so I would hesitate to call the latter an invention of a hoax.

Martin