Lemming Population Flux Solved: Mass Suicide Not to Blame

quogmire writes "Australia's ABC reports that biologists from the Universities of Finland and Freiburg (Germany) have finally solved the question of lemming population fluctuations once thought to be caused by lemmings mass-suiciding by plunging off cliffs. 'Lemming populations, they say, surge spectacularly and fall just as quickly, thanks to the combined feasting of four predators: the stoat, arctic fox, snowy owl and a seabird called the long-tailed skua.' The original article (Login required) is published in Science."

Comments

Suicide theory is a fraud!

[Chmarr]

What? There are STILL people that believe that lemmings mass suicide?! Geez, what a hoax.

It's well known, by me at least, that the whole 'lemming suicide' thing was something that Disney cooked up during their 'bad documentary' era. In this case the lemmings were hearded off a cliff by the documentary crew, and was filmed as a 'mass suicide'.

I've seen some pretty amusing/sad documentaries that came out of Disney, including one that had the antics of a Jaguar eating various creatrues. It was OBVIOUS that it was a jaguar in a rather well done habitat where they threw in various animals, mostly eels, for the jaguar to attack. It was exceptionally amusing, but sad, too, that they thought to do something like this and pass it off as truth.

Re:Suicide theory is a fraud!

[vidarh]

You're partly wrong. The lemming suicides were NOT cooked up by Disney - the idea of lemmings mass suicides preceeded their documentary by half a century at least. Disney faked their documentary because they believed the mass suicide story but they didn't manage to get any film of it, and instead of questioning whether the suicides actually happened they faked a scene to illustrate what they thought was supposed to happen.