Disney book perpetuates the lemmings mass suicide myth
When going through some boxes at my wife's childhood home we came across many books from her (and her siblings') youth. One of them is a book called Walt Disney's World of Nature. Inside, I found a passage that perpetuates (or continues) the myth that lemmings all migrate to the sea (sometimes plunging from a cliff) in an act mass suicide. We now know that this isn't true at all.
For how the mass suicide is explained in the book, here's a crappy scan of page 28:
I love how they describe the deaths of the lemmings in the water. There's no explicit mention of drowning, just this:
The bubbles in their fur make them buoyant, and the cool water feels good. They swim on and on, perhaps for miles. Bubbles foam out behind. But these bubbles are not entirely from padding feet; the fur of the lemmings is losing its buoyancy.
One minute they're having a swim, and the next minute they're dead. Poor lemmings.
The only evidence of the lemmings' mass suicide is from the Disney "documentary" Winter Wilderness (and this book). I remember watching this as a child and recalling the sad fate of the lemmings. Too bad (or, thank goodness!) it's just a myth that the producers of Winter Wilderness set up.
Some references:
- The Disney book on Amazon.com
- You can now buy the Winter Wilderness episode on DVD as part of the True Life Adventures series, but according to some of the reviews there's no mention of the controversy surrounding the lemmings segment
- Lemmings myth article at Snopes.com
- "Lemming Suicide Myth: Disney Film Faked Bogus Behavior" article from the Alaska Dept. of Fish & Game
- "Great Moments in Science: Lemmings Suicide Myth" (included audio as well)
- The lemmings article on Wikipedia with a section on the myth
