The Warrah: Man's best friend?

Scientifically, the Falkland Islands are a relatively new area for research, meaning there are still a lot of unknowns begging for furtherunderstanding. When Europeans first arrived in the Falklands in the mid 1760’sthere were no human inhabitants in the islands to speak of, but the enigmaticFalkland Islands Wolf, also known as the warrah, greeted the travelers withtails wagging. Early accounts of their fearless and seemingly tame nature, ledDarwin to predict that “within very few years after these islands shall havebecome regularly settled, in all probability this fox will be classed with thedodo as an animal which has perished from the face of the earth.”Unfortunately, within forty years after his 1832 visit to the islands in whichhe made this prediction, the warrah had been completely eradicated from theislands, making it the first canid to go extinct in documented history.

 

The Falkland Islands Wolf. Illustration by John Gerrard Keulemans. Source: wikipedia. 

Before the warrah was hunted toextinction, the islands were home to no other terrestrial mammals (includinghumans), raising the question of how and when the wolves first arrived to theislands. Speculations regarding its arrival have included theories of pastperiods of lower sea level where a land or ice bridge between the Falklands andmainland Patagonia may have formed to allow a crossing for the warrah.Alternatively, lower sea level may have reduced the, presently 500 km, channelto a distance that could reasonably be swum. Or, perhaps a few warrah floatedby chance across the channel on a log or piece of ice to arrive in the islands.The theory we are investigating, however, is that perhaps the warrah wasbrought to the islands by early humans. At this point, there is little to noscientific or archaeological evidence to substantiate a pre-European presencein the Falkland Islands, primarily because, prior to now very little has been doneto look for it.

This project is quiteinterdisciplinary and will be employing an array of methods, bothpaleoecological and archaeological, in order to begin answering the questionswe have surrounding the origins of the warrah and their potential humancounterparts. We will be collecting a number of sediment cores from variouslocations throughout the islands, which are essentially historical archives ofpast environmental change. Stored within these cores is an outstanding amountof information that can be useful for unlocking some of the mysteries of pastchanges in the islands. I will primarily be focused on the amount of charcoaltrapped within these cores, which can give us an idea of fluctuations in pastfire frequency. Fire history has a number of past, present, and futureimplications.

In a remote location such as theFalklands, early colonizers would have likely been small in number, making itdifficult to detect their earliest presence. One of the coolest things thatcharcoal can be an indicator of is exactly that, early human arrival time. Whenhumans first inhabit a location where they have not previously been, firefrequency tends to greatly increase.  Whether they are for cooking, hunting, or landclearing purposes, fires are, and always have been, an important part of humanactivity, and luckily for us, they show up as charcoal layers throughout the sedimentrecord. Thus, by looking closely at the charcoal tucked away within these cores,we will hopefully gain insight into when humans first made their way to theFalkland Islands.

 

Fuegian. Charles Darwin. Source: corpussomnium.org

Furthermore, our charcoal analysiscan be used to establish a baseline natural fire frequency for the islands,prior to the arrival of humans. One of the major goals of this project, is tohopefully enlighten the ongoing debate in the Falklands about whether or notthe implementation of controlled burning is a beneficial practice or not, whichhas major implications for conservation, restoration and land managementstrategies. Understanding the natural fire frequency of the islands can helpFalklanders inform decisions about using controlled burns or not in order tomaintain a healthy, happy environment, which in turn will ensure the continuedproduction of healthy, happy sheep wool, which is one of the most importantindustries in the islands.

We will be returning in May inorder to preform a series of archaeological digs throughout the islands aswell. This may seem like a needle in a haystack sort of search, since to dateno archaeological artifacts have been found, and in many ways it is! However,we will employ a number of methods, in order to better improve our chances of findingarchaeological artifacts. We will begin by identifying some of the most likelysites where early humans would have decided to settle early on. We will takeinto consideration things like, proximity to hunting grounds and fresh water,gently sloping beaches that would have been easy to land canoes on, and seeingas the islands have no trees we will look for sites that may have been moreprotected from the blustering westerly winds. Once sites have been deemedprobable locations for human inhabitation, we will preform a series of pitexcavations to look for human artifacts, such as stone points, bone points,large pieces of charcoal, and butcher marks on bones. Unequivocal evidence ofhuman inhabitation in the islands would provide us with strong support for theidea of human transportation of the warrah to the Falklands.

A recent study was produced thatpin-pointed the warrah’s most recent common ancestor, which was a mainlandspecies of fox called Dusicyon avus, thatwent extinct around 3000 years ago. It has been suggested that during the earlypeopling of South America, humans may have interacted with foxes in lieu of thedomestic dog, which was absent from the archaeological record until about 7,500 BP. The high frequency of fox remains, in particular D. avus, throughout the South American archaeological record lendssupport to the idea that humans were likely interacting with foxes in some capacity.In several cases fox remains were even found in human burial sites, suggestingthat there may have even been some sort of intimate relationship between earlyhumans and south American foxes. The idea that humans were interacting with thewarrah’s ancestor, lends itself well to the idea that perhaps the warrah is aremnant semi-domesticated form of its extinct ancestor. This would explain alot in terms of early accounts of the warrah’s tame and docile nature, as wellas to the idea that early humans may have brought their canid counterpartsalong with them to the Falklands.

By investigating the charcoalrecord, taking a closer look at the archaeological record in the Falklands, andby examining the warrah and its ancestor, we hope to better understand theorigins of this enigmatic canid and the way early humans may have beeninteracting with it and the Falkland Islands environment in the past. It is ourgoal to take what we learn from looking to the past and apply it to futureconservation and land management efforts. By understanding how humans wereinteracting with this environment during past periods of change we are betterset up to begin addressing questions on how to deal with changes we are seeingpresently as well as changes we may see in the future.