Wildlife
Due to more intensive human settlement, East Falkland has the corresponding conservation problems. The warrah was one of the first casualties, as Darwin says in The Voyage of the Beagle:
- "The only quadruped native to the island is a large wolf-like fox (Canis antarcticus), which is common to both East and West Falkland. I have no doubt it is a peculiar species... Their numbers have rapidly decreased; they are already banished from that half of the island which lies to the eastward of the neck of land between St. Salvador Bay and Berkeley Sound. Within a very few years after these islands shall have become regularly settled, in all probability this fox will be classed with the dodo, as an animal which has perished from the face of the earth."
Rats have also been introduced, but despite this, the island has a great deal of marine life, including penguins of various kinds.
Guanacos were unsuccessfully introduced in 1862 to East Falkland south of Mt Pleasant where Prince Alfred hunted them in 1871 . They have since become extinct, but are still on Staats Island
Charles Darwin surveyed the area's wildlife, while on HMS Beagle.
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