The Red Jungle Fowl (gallus gallus) are the forebears of all domestic fowls and as such are of immense value to both world food sources and economics.
Over the centuries these birds have been distributed across the world by Explorers and travelers from their main areas of origin in Asia.
Both natural development and selective breeding have contributed to the numerous varieties of fowl which now exist throughout the world.
Inbreeding, hybridisation and genetic engineering efforts in recent decades have taken us even further away from these natural birds.
Therefore the small pockets of jungle fowl still living in the wild are almost living dinosaurs and are of great interest and value.
The jungle fowl which roam free on the island of Santa Cruz in the Solomon Islands have the added attraction of prompting the question of whether they arrived through ancient population migrations or unsuccessful or accidental colonisation attempts by 16th century explorers.
These wild fowl of Santa Cruz closely resemble their counterparts in nearby Vanuatu and Fiji although DNA testing would probably be the only way of confirming any connections.
Did these birds arrive from the north west with the Austronesian population migrations or from the north with the Polynesians?
Were they further dispersed by inter-island trading trips?
If so then why are these birds only found in the Eastern Province of the Solomons on Santa Cruz and nearby islands?
Perhaps the fowls did originally arrive with Mendana’s ill fated second voyage and were quickly dispersed to nearby Vanuatu through canoe travel.
The wild pigs in the jungles of the islands in the Eastern Solomons are also attributed to Mendana but perhaps their origins were along whichever path the fowl came too.
As Mendana and many of the other early explorers would have either sailed via South America or Philippines, both under Spanish control at the time, it stands to reason that any poultry stock they carried on their ships came from the same sources.
Therefore any similarities between the jungle fowl of the Eastern Solomons and Vanuatu and Fiji or other Pacific Islands could be explained this way.
DNA testing will of course be a valuable albeit expensive tool in providing some answers but it would be necessary to collect samples from various Pacific Islands as well as the Philippines and at least Peru in South America from where Mendana embarked.
Populations of feral fowls in the north of Australia are examples of how quickly the birds revert to the original jungle fowl colouring and appearance if left to their own devices for a few decades. So several centuries of free breeding in the jungles of the Solomon Islands were sure to result in the birds we see today.
European settlers and traders have perhaps contributed a little to the bloodlines of these wild birds through their importation of fowls from Australia and New Zealand. However there has been no major European habitation in the Eastern Solomons.
The continued survival of these wild fowls is not only of environmental and genetic importance but also as a source to toughen the survival characteristics of village poultry in the islands.
As 80% of the populations of most Pacific Island countries still live in a rural subsistence lifestyle this then becomes of immense importance to the area as well.