A handful of feral hog facts worth sharing, each tied back to a real study or record so you can check the number yourself. Download any card as a PDF or image for social posts or briefings — everything here is licensed CC BY 4.0 with attribution to Texas Hog Dispatch.
Timmons et al. 2012, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension SP-472
Removal-Rate Math (Historical Model)
A 2012 Texas A&M AgriLife model found that removing up to about 66% of a feral hog population every year, sustained for five or more years, was needed to hold modeled populations stable under that study's assumptions. The same report estimated Texas's actual statewide harvest in 2010 at roughly 29% — well below the modeled threshold.
A historical model under one publication's assumptions — not a current yearly mandate or a measurement of today's population.
Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute, April 2026 update; Mayer 2014 national range estimate
Range Expansion & County Presence
Feral hogs' documented range expanded from roughly 4 miles a year to about 7.8 miles a year between 1982 and 2012. Texas now has more than 3 million feral hogs, present in 250 of 254 counties according to the 2024 dataset. Four counties — Dallam, El Paso, Hansford, and Sherman — simply were not reported present in that dataset; that's not the same as being permanently hog-free, and it isn't evidence of a control success story.
"Not reported present" describes a dataset gap, not a confirmed absence of hogs.
General feral-hog management literature (illustrative, unsourced figures removed)
Nocturnal Behavior Shift
Wildlife-management literature broadly describes feral hogs shifting toward more nocturnal activity once they're hunted or trapped in an area — one reason hog activity can seem to fade right when people start trying to deal with it. The diagram below is illustrative, not a measured before/after percentage.
Illustrative only — no specific percentage is attached to this claim.
General feral-hog management literature (illustrative, unsourced figures removed)
In 2014, Harris County Precinct 3 ran a funded trapping program at the Addicks and Barker Reservoirs and donated the meat to the Houston Food Bank, as reported by the Houston Chronicle at the time. That's a specific, historical local program — we haven't verified whether an equivalent donation pathway operates today, and this card doesn't claim one does or doesn't.
Historical account only — not a claim about current donation programs, legal or otherwise.
A 2024 peer-reviewed estimate puts feral swine damage to six major row crops at nearly $700 million in a single year (2021), across eleven surveyed states. That is not a U.S.-wide, all-crop damage figure, and it is not a Texas-specific number — it measures a defined set of crops and states in one year.
Scope: six crops, eleven states, 2021 data. Don't combine with unrelated cost or state-level figures.
Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC), "Going Hog Wild"; Bolds et al. 2021, Scientific Reports
Water Quality Impact
Hog damage doesn't stop at soil and turf — it shows up in the water. In the Plum Creek Watershed, removing 537 hogs across two years coincided with bacteria levels in the waterway dropping 48% relative to a neighboring area where hogs were left in place. A separate 2021 peer-reviewed study measured streams draining hog-occupied watersheds at roughly 40 times the bacterial load of comparable watersheds with no hogs present.
A 2022 study of wild boar at a central-Italy field site found activity was greatest on the darkest nights, and that measured sky brightness predicted activity better than the calendar lunar phase did. It's one regional study of one population, not a validated forecast for Texas feral hogs on any given night.
Single European field study — not Texas-specific guidance, and not a claim about hunting-guide accuracy.
