According to Polar Life, the population crash can leave as few as one lemming per hectare, from an initial 200 in the same hectare in a cyclical peak. According to the Canadian Wildlife Federation, lemming populations can fluctuate drastically within cycles, which peak every 4 years, and can even crash to levels near extinction. Nonethless, local populations can have very erratic population shifts. In fact, they are extremely widespread across their diaspora, with no immediate threats that could cause their extinction in the near future. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Collared, Brown, and Ungava lemming species alike are each classified as species of "Least Concern" among their Red List of Threatened Species. The lemming makes its winter nests in lowland areas, where snow actually serves as an insulator and helps keep them warm. The habitats in these places have tundra (treeless areas where there is permafrost) and open, sub-Arctic grasslands. The three Arctic lemming species are spread throughout Alaska, Northern Canada, Siberia in the Russian Federation, Scandinavia, and across the wider Arctic Circle. There are reports that lemmings can become cannibalistic when there is food scarcity. In the winter, lemmings eat more frozen green plants, moss shoots, bark, willow twigs, and dwarf birch, according to the ADFG. Its diet in the summer is comprised in large part by tender grass shoots, herbs, and sedges. The lemming grows up to 6 inches in length, and an adult weighs from 40 to 112 grams, with the average mature weight being 78 grams, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG). The animals have short tails, clawed feet, and tiny ears hidden in fur. Depending on the season, lemmings' coats may be grayish, brown, white, or mixed brown and white. The three Lemming species native to the arctic are the Brown, Collared, and Ungava lemmings, according to Polar Life. Gauthier's research examines why the lemming population cycle is so dramatic and what would happen if it didn't occur, or was disturbed by climate change.įoxes, snowy owls and other predators can usually survive a dip in the lemming population, where the next peak is three to five years away, he said.The Lemming is a heavily furred and tiny rodent that is said to resemble a small guinea pig or a mouse.
Iqaluit may have experienced a peak year in the summer of 2017, but Kovic says that won't be clear until the spring when lemmings emerge again. "They can have babies several times during the winter and that's what leads to these population build ups." They reproduce during the winter," said Gilles Gauthier, who is a professor at Laval University and has studied lemmings on Bylot Island since the early 1990s. "These population explosions start during the winter because lemmings are active throughout the winter. The rodent is affected by climate change because increasing freeze-thaw cycles in the fall season mean it can't get to seeds or roots buried by ice. What lemmings are up to at this time of year is still a bit of a mystery to locals and researchers, but they are most likely reproducing.Ī lemming is pictured in Iqaluit, Nunavut. The scene was staged, but it still led some to believe that lemmings follow each other en masse over cliffs to their death. In the film, lemmings throw themselves off of a cliff into the Arctic Ocean. CBC Archives: Where do all the lemmings go?."They have never been known to jump off cliffs in suicide," he said, referring to a scene from the 1958 Walt Disney documentary White Wilderness.
Both to travel under and stay warm in –40 C temperatures. Lemmings need deep snow this time of year. Grass and willow, some of the favourite foods of lemmings, poked through. Kovic stood on thin snow in an open space on the edge of Iqaluit.
That's Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit ," said the Iqaluit hunter and elder. "One thing everybody seems to believe that they jump off cliffs when they're abundant. Ben Kovic wants to quash any myths about lemmings.
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