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http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=local&story_id=090404a11_javelina

"Desert Museum welcomes baby javelina, first since '93

LARRY COPENHAVER
Tucson Citizen

Javelina at Tucson's Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum became proud parents this summer to three babies born in July and August. The babies will welcome visitors to the museum, starting Monday.

Visitors to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum on Monday will get their first view of three baby javelina born recently at the popular attraction in the Tucson Mountains west of Tucson.
This is the first time in 11 years that javelina at the museum have become parents, said Shawnee Riplog-Peterson, the site's curator of mammalogy and ornithology.
The little ones were kept out of public view for several weeks as they became acclimated to the sounds, sights and smells of a habitat where humans roam, she said. The oldest of the three is 6 weeks old. The other two are 4 weeks.
Look for the piglings - not piglets, which are associated with swine - in the shady section of their enclosure, Riplog-Peterson said. "They like to be under the bridges where they can wallow."
Keepers have installed a water supply that seeps onto the ground, and animals are quick to take advantage of the cool mud during the heat of the day, she said. Visitors will notice that, besides being a little muddy, the babies tend to have a reddish look, which changes to a very dark brown as they get older.
Riplog-Peterson said the two 3-year-old mothers are relatively new to the museum. The father is 16. Other females in the museum's herd of 10 javelina are spayed.
Javelina, sometimes called collared peccaries, live on average to age 7 in the wild, she said. In captivity, some have lived to the ripe, old age of 21. Javelina are prey animals, especially to cougars and jaguars.
While javelina resemble swine, they are not related to the farm animals, she said. "They are a separate species.
"Female javelinas can come into estrus at any time of the year. Their gestation period is 145 days," Riplog-Peterson said. Generally, a mother will give birth to two piglings at a time, but it might have up to four.
Javelina are not an endangered or threatened species, she said. And like the coyote, they have adapted to urban encroachment.
They are not considered dangerous to humans unless they are cornered and someone is occupying the only route of escape, she said. Besides the destruction of the animals' habitat, the biggest threat to the animals is if humans continue to feed them..
"They don't need any help from humans except for humans to leave them alone," she said. "We have to be responsible as humans and not feed them. Like the (Arizona) Game & Fish Department says, 'A fed animal is a dead animal.' "