Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!munnari.oz.au!kaukau.comp.vuw.ac.nz!comp.vuw.ac.nz!dsiramd!actrix!paul
From: paul@actrix.co.nz (Paul Gillingwater)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Suicidal lemmings?
Summary: It was Disney what done it!
Message-ID: <1990Feb7.201653.4074@actrix.co.nz>
Date: 7 Feb 90 20:16:53 GMT
References: <12900@cbnewsd.ATT.COM> <1283@oravax.UUCP> <31315@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> <19712@netnews.upenn.edu> <12994@cbnewsd.ATT.COM> <19880@netnews.upenn.edu>
Reply-To: paul@actrix.co.nz (Paul Gillingwater)
Organization: Actrix Public Access UNIX, Wellington, New Zealand
Lines: 18

In article <19880@netnews.upenn.edu> rowe@pender (Mickey Rowe) writes:
>Although it is true that lemmings perform strange mass migrations, I
>thought the mass suicide idea had been abandoned.  I remember hearing
>a rumor once that some people making a documentary meant to show this
>occurrence got tired of waiting for it to happen, and filmed a bunch
>of lemmings jumping off of a cliff (but not showing the people herding
>them over the edge :(.  Do biologists still believe that there are
>naturally occurring conditions under which lemming will do this?

It was a Disney wild-life documentary.  In fact, the cliff was 
a construction, and the lemmings were tossed over by gaffers.
This was revealed in a recent expose on Disney film-making.  Other
interesting quirks were the various "fight scenes" in making things
like "Ricky the Racoon".  They went through several "Rickys" in
filming these sequences, as the bear kept killing them.

-- 
Paul Gillingwater, paul@actrix.co.nz