Abstract

When Charles Darwin visited the Falkland Islands, he was puzzled to find only one species of land-dwelling mammal – a fox-like animal called the warrah [WAH-rah]. How could the warrah have reached the Falkland Islands? Until now, scientists have assumed humans weren’t responsible for bringing the warrah to the islands. However, we showed that it is very likely that Indigenous people from the Tierra del Fuego visited the islands centuries before the first European explorers arrived. The Yaghan people are traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers and often traveled with domesticated foxes. We believe that the Yaghan people probably brought the warrah to the islands centuries ago.