Javelinas have never gotten a wealth of respect from hunters and wildlife managers, but things are changing. The Boone and Crockett Club has plans to elevate the gritty critters to new heights.
Based is Missoula, Mont., B&C recently announced that it will create a new big game records category for javelina, also known as collared peccary.
B&C is recognized as the official records keeper for native North American big game animals taken on open range by legal hunting methods. The B&C records program includes trophies taken by rifle, bow, hand gun and other methods.
B&C says idea for a new category recognizing trophy javelina was recently proposed to its records committee by wildlife managers from Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Mexico. In December, the organization’s records committee voted in favor of the proposal. The decision is expected to lead to the creation of the organization’s first new big game category since 2001 and the first new species added to the record book since 1998.
“The decision to add javelina as a trophy species was years in the making and reflects not only the growing appreciation for the species among hunters and wildlife managers, but can bring conservation benefits to javelina and the places it lives,” says Mike Opitz, chairman of B&C’s records committee.
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department wildlife division director Alan Cain was part of a Texas group that was instrumental in leading the charge for the creation of the new records category for javelina. Cain suspects it will be late 2025 or 2026 before the new category becomes official.
“It’s great news,” Cain said. “It’s going to bring some respect to an animal that doesn’t always get it and probably place some value on it as far as hunting goes. It’ll give hunters a new opportunity to get something in the record book if they are interested in that sort of thing. Plus, it will highlight javelina hunting and javelina conservation. It’s a win-win for everybody.”
It is unclear at this point what type of measuring protocol and minimum score will be required for record book status, but Cain suspects the animals will be judged by skull measurements similar to those followed when scoring javelina for the Texas Big Game Program.
Kyle Lehr, B&C’s director of big game records, says the organization’s main focus is coming up with “a minimum that strikes the balance between a mature specimen worthy of recognition and a good representation of a mature javelina across its range. Lehr said he and his staff work with several states and Mexico to establish that number. “We need to determine if a mature javelina in, say Texas, is quantifiably different than one in Arizona,” he said.
According the TPWD publication “The Javelina in Texas,” the javelina’s current range has been restricted to portions of the lower coastal plains, the South Texas Plains, the western half of the Edwards Plateau, the Trans-Pecos, and the southern edge of the Rolling Plains.
Javelinas are not pigs, although they do have pig-like characteristics like a long snout and stout bodies averaging 35-45 pounds. They live in highly social herds averaging about 20 animals.
The animals are legal game in 99 of Texas’ 254 counties. There is no closed season in the South Zone. The 2024-25 season in the North Zone runs Oct. 1 to Feb. 23. Hunters are limited to two javelinas per license year.
TPWD’s most recent Big Game Harvest survey indicates that nearly 43,000 hunters shot about 28,000 javelinas in 2023.
