GRGR (14): Lemmings

[Tim Thomas]

Again with the Lemmings! This last came up early '98 if I remember
correctly. The story goes like this: Early Naturalists journeyed to the Cold
North and frolicked amongst the tundra. They heard local Inuit folklore of
furry little critters chucking themselves down mountainsides, and accepted
it as truth. The story spread like a million overfed and oversexed lemmings
back to europe. Later in the middle years of this century a certain Disney
corp (not well known as good "anthropologists" [who usually study humans,
not lemmings] or even naturalists) made a little info-tainment piece called
"White Wilderness" for which a population of canadian lemmings was shipped
to California and chased off a cliff. On that Urban Legend website this part
of the tale gets the "proven true" seal of approval - and since its on the
web it must be true.

Apparently Lemmings do run down mountainsides en masse but only to escape
bad weather, some get squished on the way - hence the Inuit folklore.

Tim


> > I believe that it was the makers of a wildlife TV documentary, who
herded the
> > lemmings towards a cliff and then filmed them falling off - one of those
dodgy
> > anthropologist "skewings" of data to prove a hypothesis. Was it the BBC,
in the
> > 60's ?  something like that. Anyway, it was believed by everyone and is
now the
> > "truth".
>
> I had heard that same story, except the filmer was Disney. Possibly it's
an urban
> legend?
>