The Javelina

 

It is 6am and I am awakened by Anne telling me that there are Javelinas in the back yard. I thought about Javelinas yesterday, at the end of the day when I looked towards the driveway gate. The gate was swung shut but it was not latched. “Naw, no way. Don’t bother walking up there just to latch it”, I said to myself.

You may look at a javelina and think it’s a hairy pig, a wild boar, or maybe one of those feral razorback hogs running around the United States. But surprisingly, javelinas aren’t pigs at all! They actually branched off from the pig family nearly 40 million years ago.

A javelina is a peccary — specifically, the collared peccary. Peccaries are native to the Americas and the Western Hemisphere, while true pigs originally come from the Old World. Javelinas, are usually about 3 feet long and weigh between 40 and 60 pounds. They have coarse, greyish-brown hair that looks a bit like salt and pepper, with pig-like snouts and small eyes. Unlike true pigs, javelinas have small, rounded ears, tiny tails, and short, straight tusks.

The name “collared peccary” comes from the band of light-colored fur around their necks, which looks like a collar. This collar becomes especially noticeable when a javelina feels threatened because the hair on the back of its neck and shoulders stands up.

Javelinas appeared in North America during the Miocene period. In the U.S. they are native to the Sonoran Desert in the southwest. They are a very social animal. They can be seen pacing in single file in large numbers, called squadrons. A squadron may have as many as 20 Javelinas.

We have chased Javelinas from our yard, in Ajo, AZ, more than once. Javelinas are omnivores. On one visit, they lay waste to several thriving young cacti that Anne had been nursing. On another occasion, they tipped over the garbage container located outside the dining room window, when I was doing some early morning computer work. Each time, I would step outside and shoo them off. They scatter in all directions, making it necessary to circle the back yard to ensure that they have all been shown to the front gate.

The large adult Javelina is not a friendly animal. When angered, the hair on the spine stands up. On one visit, I had a critter refuse to follow my instructions about leaving. It stood ground and glared at me as I was approaching it. Our guest turned at the last moment and jogged toward the front gate.

This morning it took three trips outside to finally rid the yard of all of the Javelinas. To avoid me, they would hide behind the rear workshop. The last animal bolted towards the street. The hair on its back looked like a “Mohican” haircut. It was not happy that the squadron had long since left. 

Dawn had arrived by the time I got to latch the driveway gate for the final time. I walked back under the side carport where the garbage container is kept. The large black rubbish vault had been knocked over, and a huge amount of its contents had been shared by the squadron of Javelinas.