WILD THING
All in the Family
Javelinas travel in groups
as they hunt for food.
It was a surprise meeting between two very different families. We were spending a week at a South Texas dude ranch, enjoying daily trail rides and evenings in the comfortable, rustic lodge. Our room had a large sliding glass door facing out on arid scrubland, with small oak trees littering the nearby ground with brown acorns.
Waking up a bit earlier than usual one morning, I pulled back the drapes and came face to face with a family of collared peccaries, commonly called javelinas, rooting about outside our door. There were eight of them, including two small reddish-brown infants.
They were intent on gorging themselves on acorns and ignored us completely. Given the javelina’s poor eyesight, they may not have seen us, although they have a very keen sense of smell, and likely knew we were there.But they nonchalantly went on with their breakfast.
Each of the adults was nearly 2 feet tall at the shoulder, lean but firmly built, weighing about 50 pounds. Other than the babies, they were uniformly dark brownish black in color, with a whitish collar. Their snouts were decidedly pig-like, and they had slim legs ending in hooved feet. Javelinas may look like pigs, but they are not — peccaries and pigs diverged around 40 million years ago and might at best be considered distant cousins. There are three species of peccary found in the Americas, with the collared peccary being the one that inhabits our southern states — Texas, Arizona and New Mexico in particular.
They prefer prickly pear cactus, but will eat a variety of vegetation, which, as we learned, includes acorns. Herd animals, they band together in family groups, using a chemical scent they exude from a gland at their rump to mark territory and themselves so that they can recognize members. Most of the time you may smell a javelina before you see it — the scent, which may be useful and pleasant to peccaries, is unpleasant to many people.
Javelina herds are protected by a dominant male, who marks territory and fends off other males intent on stealing away his females. With razor-sharp teeth and canine tusks, the males will do battle, but despite the show of aggression, there are rarely any fatalities. They are not aggressive toward people unless cornered or provoked; in the early 20th century they were hunted for their hides, the thick leather and fur making for tough and warm gloves. This severely depleted their numbers, but the population has since stabilized in Texas due to successful management as a game animal, limiting the number of animals that may be taken to two per hunter over a year.
Javelinas are smelly, that’s true, and at times can become a nuisance, but above all, they are interesting Texas wildlife.
Maegan Lanham | TPWD
A CLOSER LOOK AT JAVELINAS
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has commissioned a study on javelinas to better understand these residents of South and West Texas. Whitney Gann, manager of the Chaparral Wildlife Management Area, noted the lack of information on javelinas and wanted to fix it. After a couple of years of challenging environmental conditions at the WMA, Gann knew she needed to modify the hunt and harvest schedules for game animals. “I know how to flex when things are poor for deer, but we just don’t really know how to do that for javelina or if we even need to do it,” she says. “I want to be able to manage them the best way I can with the best information that’s available to me.”
TPWD is funding a study, to be conducted by Texas A&M University over five years, to find out several things:
Survey methods. What’s the best way to survey javelina numbers? “They’re difficult to survey because they travel in these big family units and they all look the same,” Gann says. The study will look at helicopter, camera and roadside survey methods.
Population models. How do javelinas respond to changing environmental conditions? Researchers will look at how the animals react to rain and drought and determine what factors affect herd sizes.
Habitat suitability. Researchers will determine which South Texas habitats are most suitable for javelinas and estimate their current range.
Common name:
Javelina or collared peccary
Scientific name:
Dicotyles tajacu
Habitat:
Arid or semi-arid parts of the state, including the South Texas Brush Country, the Trans-Pecos’ desert grasslands and the Edwards Plateau’s oak-juniper woodlands
Diet:
Cacti (particularly prickly pear), mesquite beans, lechuguilla, sotol, mast, fruits and insects
Did you know?
Javelinas enjoy sleeping in dark, sheltered areas such as caves, or even in the crawl space under houses.
» Like this story? If you enjoy reading articles like this, subscribe to Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine.
