Why Do Lemmings Go on a Death March to the Sea?
Why Do Lemmings Go on a Death March to the Sea? According to legend, every three or four years, the lemmings of Norway march to the sea and drown themselves. These mouse like rodents aren’t really making a mass death plunge. Every few years, the lemmings’ feeding grounds become overcrowded.
Great numbers begin to migrate, moving in one direction. They swim lakes and rivers and cross over mountains, eating as they go. Eventually, they reach the ocean. The lemmings think the ocean is just another body of water to cross, and don’t know that this swim will be their last.
Lemmings have become the subject of a widely popular misconception that they commit mass suicide when they migrate, by jumping off cliffs. It is in fact not a mass suicide but the result of their migratory behavior.