A Procession of Peccaries

Gorgeous morning today in Gallon Jug, sunny, breezy, about 80F. We like to walk on Sundays, so we headed out to Laguna Seca, a vast wetlands system extending northwards across the Gallon Jug Estate property. The great thing about Gallon Jug is the sense that, even after our 25 years in Belize, anything can happen, that the jaguar is just around the next corner.

In this case, it wasn't a jaguar but rather, a procession of peccaries. White-lips, or warrie, to be exact (Pecari tajacu) . This is the "big" peccary and a species that requires large forested areas to forage for their preferred food items. I was able to get out of the car and approach them slowly on foot in order to get this video. You can see that they were fairly unconcerned. I didn't push it by going too close or attempting to make them scatter. They tolerated our presence for a long time before easing off into the bush when we finally slowly moved the car forward.

By our estimates, there were about 6o of them that crossed the road, a good sized herd. And I'll repeat my mantra: because of good protection here on the Gallon Jug Estate, this large herd of a heavily hunted species, appears to be thriving. Believe me when I say they are wiped out in many areas of Belize, Central and South America.