From Some Big Game Hunts (1911) by Albert Hawes Cordier.
Javelinas are also known as collared peccaries. As an Easterner, I had no idea these things lived in the United States until I was in my teens. I first heard of them on a nature program about South American wildlife, and the animals were called collared peccaries.
The name comes from the Mexican Spanish, which refers to their spear-like tusks that somewhat resemble javelins. It is the name most commonly used for this species in the United States, which is now quite widespread in the states of Texas and Arizona. They have become something a nuisance in some areas. They have been known to attack people and dogs, and in some parts of Arizona, people worry more about the javelinas attacking their dogs than they worry about them being attacked by coyotes or cougars.
These animals are not true pigs, but they are close relatives to the true pig family. They have much smaller litters than feral pigs or introduced wild boar, and they don’t get nearly as large.
But this is the closest thing that the United States has to a native pig.
During the Pleistocene, two extinct peccary species, the flat-headed and long-nosed peccaries, lived throughout what would become the United States, ranging as far north and east as New York State.
We have them. They know the dogs can’t get them through the fence and they will sometimes get quite close. Their tusks are self-sharpening. Dangerous animals.