Those Sociable Javelinas

MEET THE SOCIABLE JAVELINA FOCUS ON NATURE

Woof! Woof! I lurch to a halt on the Coffee Flats Trail, startled by the sharp snorts just off to my left. Turning to look, I watch a rapidly departing javelina weave its way among desert shrubs and cacti. A row of long, coarse, dark brown hairs stands erect along its backbone, making it seem even thinner than it is. In no time at all, the animal vanishes, but for a few seconds after it disappears I can hear its footsteps. Then there is one last half-hearted bark, followed by the silence of the desert.

I remain still, listening, and then cautiously start down the trail again. Where there is one javelina there are almost certain to be more. Sure enough, another animal just a few yards away leaps into the air and bounds off, crossing the trail ahead with its own woofs of alarm. Then another, and another, and another, until nine javelinas in all have fled.

They are not so terrified as to run a long distance, only 50 yards or so upslope. I glimpse fractions of javelinas, a brown rump here, a pale snout there, partly concealed by jojobas and staghorn cacti. The animals resume their dedicated search for food, snuffling about under the paloverdes, snipping chunks from the pads of prickly pear. Through my binoculars, I see one unfortunate beast whose nose looks like a pincushion, impaled as it is with a dozen or so cactus spines.

Although they look rather like small and wiry pigs, and are closely related to them, javelinas are assigned a family of their own. Of the three members of the family Tayassuidae, the javelina, or collared peccary (Tayassu tajacu) is the only one to live in the United States. Its current range begins in northern Argentina and ends in central Arizona.

But had I been out walking this Arizona trail 150 or 200 years ago, odds are that I would not have been startled by snorting javelinas. Anglo and Spanish explorers of the Southwest rarely commented on the presence of these highly edible creatures, and the Native Americans of Arizona did not possess a word of their own for this species. All of which strongly suggests that javelinas are relative newcomers to Arizona.

Why collared peccaries marched across the Mexican border fairly recently is not known for sure, but it is possible that their range expansion is related to intense grazing by livestock in southern Arizona's grasslands during the 1890s cattle boom. The elimination of grasses may have contributed to the spread of prickly pear and mesquites,(LEFT AND ABOVE) Collared peccaries are the only pigs native to the United States. Although related to pigs, the peccary, or javelina, is in a family all its own. The sociable critter can take care of itself in the wild, but its reputation as a "killer" is overblown.

which provide javelinas with some of the foods they most enjoy.

Whatever the reason for their current abundance north of the border, javelinas are a delightful addition to Arizona's wildlife, popular with hunters and Nature enthusiasts alike. They do have a reputation for being dangerous, charging people on occasion and even slashing victims with their sharp-edged canines.

As is often the case, however, the image of "killer javelinas" is wildly overblown. I suspect that almost all of the very few injuries caused by these animals in Arizona have occurred when persons supplying kitchen scraps to partly tamed individuals forgot that they were dealing with wild animals, not docile barnyard pigs.

When they are left alone, most javelinas have the good sense to treat humans as the lethal danger that they are, fleeing without a second look back.

Collared peccaries are, however, willing and able to defend themselves and their petite youngsters against predators such as coyotes, bobcats, and mountain lions. By living together, groups of adults can interpose themselves and their capable canines between their infants and an enemy. With much loud clacking of teeth and intimidating charges, a band of full-grown javelinas can usually encourage a sensible predator to consider dining elsewhere.

Sociable javelinas not only work together to chase off predators, they also communally defend their territories (which may be several hundred acres in size) against intruders of their own species. One humble, but conspicuous, component of communal territory defense involves shared use of "latrines" on the borders of their homelands. By repeatedly defecating in the same places, band members provide information about their presence to would-be intruders that come across these distinctive defecatoria. Most intruders take the hint and avoid already occupied terrain.

On a somewhat more elevated level, the cooperative behavior of javelinas extends to the nursing of babies by females in addition to the mothers of these offspring. Shared nursing is a most unusual attribute for a mammal. It is probable, but unproven at this time, that the "wet nurses" are the adult sisters or aunts of the babies that they help feed.

So whenever I stumble across a band of Arizonan javelinas, I watch them with cautious respect and considerable admiration for their success in coping with a hard land, a success that depends not just on their formidable teeth but also their capacity to cooperate in solving the problems of life in the desert.