page_title: East Falkland
section_title: Wildlife
hierarchical_section_title: East Falkland / Wildlife
context_page_description: East Falkland is the largest island of the Falklands in the South Atlantic, having an area of 6,605 km² or 54% of the total area of the Falklands. The island consists of two main land masses, of which the more southerly is known as Lafonia; it is joined by a narrow isthmus that was the scene of the Battle of Goose Green during the Falklands War.
  The two main centres of population in the Falklands, Stanley and Mount Pleasant, which are both in the northern half of East Falkland, are home to three quarters of the island's population.
context_section_description: 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.
caption: Gypsy Cove, East Falkland
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