Updates
What's Changed
New things to explore, clearer answers, and corrections worth knowing about. Here's what's changed on the Hog Watch Tracker.
September 16, 2026
Texas Hog Dispatch Is Live
Today, Texas Hog Dispatch opened its controlled pilot for qualifying private properties outside city limits in Harris and Montgomery counties. The main site now provides separate request and operator pathways, while the Hog Watch Tracker remains a free public research and intelligence resource. The two sites are linked by purpose, not merged: the Tracker helps people understand the problem and contribute local observations for review; Texas Hog Dispatch handles separate property requests and operator participation. Submitting a Tracker report is not a service request, a live public sighting, or a guarantee of action.
September 7, 2026
Finding what you came for just got easier.
The tracker has been reorganized so county data, research, industry explainers, and public tools are easier to find. Research articles are now grouped in one library, and the national state map has its own page so it no longer interrupts the Texas county flow.
September 4, 2026
What removal work actually involves.
The Behind the Work library, Operators & Industry, launched with six sourced explainers about how removal work is organized, documented, and reported.
September 2, 2026
What removal counts can’t tell you.
The Catchability Gap evidence review launched, covering what published removal counts can and cannot show about the hogs that remain.
August 31, 2026
You’ve got your score. How do you compare?
Quiz results now explain how your score compares with the current participant average, when enough responses are available. Take the five-question quiz and see where you land.
August 21, 2026
Why don’t all the hog numbers match?
Clarification: Texas-wide estimates and county-level figures measure different things. We standardized references to the statewide estimate at more than 3 million wild pigs, citing Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute (April 2026), and clarified that county estimates are separate. This followed our site-wide content and branding review.
August 8, 2026
Meet the organizations working on the problem.
Explore five independent nonprofits whose conservation, research, and community work overlaps with feral hog management in Texas and beyond.
August 2–3, 2026
What could five more years look like?
Use the growth calculator to explore how different removal levels affect a population’s projected size over five years. We also added moon-phase context and field guide material about local impacts. Projections illustrate scenarios; they aren’t predictions of what will happen on your property.
July 27, 2026
Writing about the hog problem? Start here.
Our Press Kit brings together logos, a description of Texas Hog Dispatch, and guidance for citing the tracker. We also added information to help search engines understand the dataset.
July 21, 2026
Take your county’s information with you.
Download a county fact sheet as a PDF with a QR code back to the tracker. We also corrected agricultural-damage figures using more current research and made the dataset available for reuse with attribution under CC BY 4.0.
July 20, 2026
The tracker is open. Take a look around.
The first public release brought together a sourced hog knowledge quiz, an accessible national map, downloadable CSV data, and an explanation of where the numbers come from.