Editorial Policy

Independence

• Commissions never set a score or pick a winner. Scores come from the rubric on How We Choose.
• No sponsored placements. No brand pays to be ranked, and no brand sees a page before it's published.
• We don't accept free products in exchange for coverage.
• When the best option for a job isn't sold on Amazon (many hog trap systems are sold only by their makers), we say so and link the maker with a plain, non-earning link.

Sourcing standards

• Law: primary sources first: the TPWD Outdoor Annual, Texas Parks and Wildlife Code sections, Texas Animal Health Commission rules and Texas Department of Agriculture pages. Every rule on a law page links to its source and carries the regulation year.
• Hog biology and control: Texas A&M AgriLife (“Coping with Feral Hogs”), AgriLife Today, the Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute and USDA APHIS, plus peer-reviewed papers where they exist.
• Product specs: the maker's own spec page or manual first, then the product listing. Seller performance numbers (detection range, lumens, yards of throw, “miles” of fence) are labeled “maker's claim.”
• Statistics carry a source and a year and are never blended. Texas hog population estimates differ by study and year, so we cite each one on its own.
• Forums, retailer blogs and competitor lists are never cited as evidence.
• Unknowns are stated: “not published by the maker,” or “no field study settles this.”

What we don't claim

• That we tested, owned or field-used any product. Every pick is labeled Researched.
• Credentials, titles or experience the author doesn't have.
• That hogs “can't see” red or green light. The research doesn't settle it, so we say so.
• Prices we didn't pull live from the retailer.

Safety and legality

We don't link or recommend firearms, ammunition, suppressors, hog toxicants (warfarin bait is a Texas state-limited-use pesticide) or drones for locating hogs (unlawful in Texas without a TPWD permit). Caliber pages are editorial only. We write about hog control in terms of clean, legal, whole-sounder removal, and we don't publish gore.

Corrections

If something on a page is wrong, email mike@blackironathletics.com or use the contact form. We check the correction against the source, fix the page, and log the change in that page's “What changed” list with the date.

Update cadence

• Texas law pages: re-checked every September 1, when the new TPWD regulation year begins, and whenever TPWD, TAHC or TDA announce a change.
• Rankings and comparisons: re-checked quarterly. A model that disappears from Amazon comes off the list.
• Damage and population figures: re-checked every six months for newer Texas A&M or USDA numbers.
• The “Updated” date on a page changes only when its content really changes, and every change is logged.

How pages are produced

Pages are researched from the sources above and written for this site. Drafting and fact-checking can involve software tools, but every page is held to the same rule: each fact links to a source you can open, and nothing is published that the sources don't support.