Hog Watch · Texas field guide
Know the animal. Understand the bigger picture. Explore the research behind Texas wild pigs, from identification to county reports and the places they affect.
Free, sourced research & education. County reports are not live sightings, population counts or operator-availability maps.
01 / Know what you’re looking at
Adult hogs, young piglets and a commonly confused Texas neighbor.
Sus scrofa · adult
Coarse bristles, an elongated snout, a visible tail and highly variable coloration.
Sus scrofa · juvenile
Light lengthwise stripes provide camouflage and generally fade as the animal matures.
Pecari tajacu · collared peccary
A smaller body, pale shoulder collar, shorter snout and little visible tail. Not a feral hog.
Illustrated identification references, not photographs of documented sightings. Appearance varies; the artwork is not scientific field-identification evidence.
Inside the Texas Wild Hog02 / The statewide picture
Keep the estimate, the reporting year and the limits together.
Dallam, El Paso, Hansford and Sherman were not reported present in the 2024 dataset. That is not proof they are hog-free, a permanent absence or evidence of control success.
The same reported-presence label can cover very different local populations. County estimates and map layers answer different questions; a density map is not a presence map.
Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute (April 2026). The April 2026 NRI update reports more than 3 million wild pigs and describes the 2024 county reporting dataset.
Read the NRI update ↗National technical (modeled) estimate: ~6.3 million wild pigs (range 4.4–11.3 million). Source: Mayer 2014, USDA/OSTI technical report — a modeled estimate, not a current census.
Texas and national figures use different years and methods. They do not establish that current Texas is precisely half of a current national population.
How to read the county estimates →Choose a Texas county to open its existing record, estimates and fact sheet.
The Map & County Explorer keeps the Census county map, sourced local research, county profiles, a downloadable research brief and the county directory together. It is a research resource, not a service-availability map.
Read sourced regional reporting →03 / Why it matters
Crops, property, waterways and wildlife share the same landscape.
01 / Crops
Nearly $700 million in estimated 2021 costs to producers of six crops across eleven surveyed states. Not Texas-only; not all U.S. damage.
McKee, Mayer & Shwiff (2024), Agriculture 14(1):153. The study includes costs beyond direct crop losses. It cannot be compared with an older Texas-only $52 million figure as evidence of growth.
McKee, Mayer & Shwiff 2024, Agriculture 14(1):153
Explore the research library →02 / Property
Rooting and wallowing can disturb soil and vegetation. Local conditions matter; the illustration does not measure a property’s loss.
John C. Kinsey (2020), TPWD, Ecology and Management of Wild Pigs. The official guide describes wild-pig behavior and habitat impacts.
Read the TPWD guide (PDF) ↗03 / Water
Texas watershed documents identify feral hogs among sources of bacterial pollution, alongside livestock and pet waste.
TCEQ’s Spring Creek watershed planning documents name multiple pollution sources. A watershed finding is not a test result for every creek.
Read the water-quality evidence and TCEQ links →04 / Wildlife
Wild-pig foraging and habitat disturbance can affect native ecosystems. Effects vary by place, season and species.
Kinsey’s TPWD guide discusses ecological impacts. The feeding chapter separates documented behavior from broad claims about predation.
Explore feeding, habitat and evidence limits →04 / Population growth
A historical model helps explain why sustained effort matters — without pretending every population behaves alike.
Historical SP-472 scenarios (2012): up to 28% annual growth with no removal; about 66% annual removal sustained over five-plus years to hold the modeled population stable. These are study-specific assumptions, not universal rates.
Illustrative five-year paths from the existing Growth Calculator. Published five-year multiples anchor the curves; intermediate years use its interpolation. These are not observed county counts or predictions.
Timmons, Higginbotham, Lopez et al. (2012), Texas A&M AgriLife SP-472. The historical scenarios include up to 28% annual growth with no removal and a stable population at about 66% annual removal sustained over five-plus years. Neither is a universal rate. The calculator reproduces published five-year multiples rather than compounding the rounded 28% headline.
| Year | No removal | 66% removal |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 100 | 100 |
| 1 | 127 | 100 |
| 2 | 162 | 100 |
| 3 | 206 | 100 |
| 4 | 262 | 100 |
| 5 | 333 | 100 |
The publication estimated statewide harvest in 2010 at about 29%. Local survival, movement, food and reproduction vary; this does not prescribe a removal target for every property.
Explore the model and source context in the Growth Calculator →Under favorable conditions, three litters in roughly fourteen months are physiologically possible. Actual reproduction varies with food, age and local conditions.
That possibility is not three litters every year, and it is not the expected rate for every sow. Nor does it turn the model into a property-level forecast.
John C. Kinsey (2020), Ecology and Management of Wild Pigs, TPWD, page 2. The guide distinguishes physiological possibility from observed reproductive variation.
Read the official TPWD publication (PDF) ↗Explore the reproduction chapter →Keep the context close
More than 3 million wild pigs. Estimates vary by year and methodology, and Texas holds the largest share of the national population.
Source: Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute (April 2026)
A national technical (modeled) estimate puts the population near 6.3 million (range 4.4–11.3 million). This is a modeling estimate, not a current census.
Source: Mayer 2014, USDA/OSTI technical report
Yes — Dallam, El Paso, Hansford, and Sherman were not reported present in the 2024 dataset, which reports hogs present in 250 of 254 Texas counties. That isn't proof those four counties are permanently hog-free, an improvement, or evidence of control success — it simply reflects what that dataset reported.
Source: Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute (April 2026)
McKee and colleagues estimated nearly $700 million in annual costs to producers of six crops across eleven surveyed states for 2021. The estimate includes costs beyond direct crop losses; it is not a total for all U.S. wild-pig damage.
Source: McKee, Mayer & Shwiff 2024, Agriculture 14(1):153
A widely cited historical model found that sustained removal of up to about 66% of a population annually, over 5+ years, could hold a modeled population stable under that study's assumptions; Texas' estimated statewide harvest in 2010 was about 29%. This tracker's growth calculator uses that same modeled framework — it is not a universal yearly mandate, and it does not claim every untreated population grows by a fixed rate.
Source: Timmons et al. 2012, Texas A&M AgriLife SP-472 (historical model)
Use the Map & County Explorer: search your county and download a one-page fact sheet with the current figures and local contacts.
Source: Texas Hog Dispatch county dataset (CC BY 4.0)
