Javelina Essenti

Arizona Outdoorsman / AZOD

Javelina Essentials

By Robert Willis

“Pig” hunting. Is a better way to spend the winter months in the Sonoran desert? Not for me. I love hunting these smelly little critters. Of course, purists will no doubt point out that what we call javelina or the vernacular “pig” are actually collared peccaries or Tayassu tajacu to be even more precise. Collared peccaries along with their relatives the white-lipped peccaries of Central and South America and the South American chacoan peccaries are not pigs at all. They differ from true pigs in many ways but few of those differences are apparent as they trot through the desert. Arizona hunters just call them “pigs” or javelina.

Javelina season is a beautiful time to be in the desert. Archery season runs through the month of January and the HAM and general rifle seasons are in February. This is an opportune time to hunt javelina for several important reasons. First, true to their tropical roots, Javelina can reproduce throughout the year but you have the lowest chance of encountering females with young during the months of January, February and March. In addition, it is the time of year when they are the most diurnal (daytime dwellers). Javelina use the sun to stay warm and spend most of their winter and early spring days feeding or moving. At night they bed down, often huddled close at the base of a desert tree in a thicket or in a “pig-pile“ in a cave to stay warm. In the summer, the opposite is true and they will spend most of the day resting in the shade and do most of their moving and feeding at night when it is coolest.

In a way, we are lucky to even have the opportunity to hunt these amazing animals. They hail from South and Central America and have proved their adaptability by dispersing northward into North America. Javelina did not arrive in what is now Arizona until the mid 1700’s. And most of their expansion in Arizona occurred in the last one hundred years. Now, from a latitudinal standpoint, they are the second only to whitetail deer as most widely distributed hoofed animal in the new world. Javelina are relatively small, measuring only around 19 inches at the withers and not quite three feet long from tip of their snouts to their almost nonexistent tails. They weigh between 40 and 60 pounds on the hoof and about a third less dressed out.

They are quick animals, capable of trotting at ten miles per hour and galloping twice that fast. They have notoriously poor eyesight and have difficulty seeing a person at more than 75 yards away. They hear better than we do and perhaps very nearly as well as deer do. Their real strength, however, is their olfactory sense. They have been observed being spooked by human sent at as much as a quarter of a mile away.

Scent is important to Javelina on many levels. From a danger detection standpoint, their sense of smell helps them detect and thereby avoid predators. It also helps them find food because they can smell roots or tubers buried under the soil or stashes of mesquite pods hidden at the bottom of pack rat middens. But scent is also important from a social perspective because as good as javelina are at detecting various aromas, they are equally good a producing them with a scent gland on their backs about seven inches north of their tails. Javelinas are territorial animals and they use this dorsal gland to demarcate territorial boundaries. This scent gland seems to be important for herd cohesion as well. The odor they emit helps them recognize and keep track of fellow herd members.

When feeding, javelina tend to spread out and leisurely feed while keeping track of each other with scent or sound. When you see them cruising meaning either trotting or walking steadily, generally in a single-file line, they are going someplace. Often this means heading to cover because they were disturbed or perhaps to bedding grounds or to water. Another good bet is that if you see javelina moving either while feeding or otherwise, they are probably moving into the wind. One study quantified this observation. In that study of javelina movement, 44% of the time they moved into the wind. 29% of the time they moved with a cross wind and only 27% of the time moved with the wind. It seems they play to their strong suit, their sense of smell.

Javelina are famous for eating the pads of prickly pear cactus and researchers have observed that they will feed on them throughout the year. Prickly pear pads are an excellent source of water but lack much nutritional value. In the months when we hunt javelina, their prickly pear and other succulent consumption is at it lowest and they will forage more on grasses and forbs if available.

The smell of the Javelina is distinctive. Some say that they downright stink! In fact, many people report smelling javelina before actually seeing them, especially in the thick cover of their bedding grounds. If you’re not sure what they smell like, stop by the Phoenix Zoo and poke your head over the fence of the javelina enclosure and take a good whiff. Contrary to many a myth, the scent gland comes off with the hide and needs no special care in field dressing other than to simply avoid touching it and thereby releasing the musky scent

Arizona provides numerous opportunities to hunt this unique big game animal. I have found that a little knowledge can go a long way to help ensure a successful hunt. I hope this information will help you with your hunt.

Sources:

Javelina Research and Management in Arizona. By Gerald I. Day. Published by the Arizona Game and Fish Department, ISBN 0-917563-01-8

The Peccaries. By Lyle K. Sowls. The University of Arizona Press, 1984

ISBN 0-8165-08222-4