Document a feral hog wallow and its runoff path, a public dry-ground vantage of a feral hog wallow near a park trail or bottomland flat.

How this work is done

A documented method, so this packet comes out the same whoever does it.

Steps

1. 1. From dry ground at a stand-off, confirm no hog is present nearby before approaching to photograph; if a hog is seen or heard, leave the area immediately.
2. 2. Photograph the wallow depression and, separately, trace and photograph the visible runoff or sediment path leading away from it toward the nearest water, without wading in or touching the wallow's water or mud.
3. 3. Note the wallow's approximate size and the runoff path's length, and whether it shows active sediment movement (a churned, muddy channel) versus a dry, stabilized track, distinguishing this from ordinary streambank erosion: a wallow's sediment source is the animal-disturbed depression itself, not a stream reach.
4. 4. Record a ranked follow on note naming the site for a sediment-control crew, and state the observation point relative to the park landmark, never the wallow's own coordinate.

What counts as done

• Photo of the wallow depression taken from dry ground at a stand-off
• Photo and description of the visible runoff or sediment path toward water
• Confirmation that this work never trapped, snared, baited, shot, hunted, or used dogs against any hog, built no capture-designed fence, performed no aerial work, and applied no toxicant; that no hog, live or dead, was touched, approached, followed, cornered, or photographed at close range and no carcass was touched; that if a hog was seen or heard nearby the work stopped and the person left the area; that this work was never scheduled at dawn or dusk; that no wallow water or mud was waded into, touched by hand, or sampled; that no precise coordinate of a wallow or rooting concentration was recorded or published; that no organism, wild seed, or plant was collected and no listed species was approached; and that the work stayed within Fort Parker State Park's public grounds, the public road right of way, public building grounds, or a consenting resident's own home and never crossed onto private ranch land.
• Ranked follow on note naming the site for a sediment-control crew
• GPS waypoint of the general public vantage only, never the wallow's precise location

Proof is measured against these, not judged by taste.

The standard this serves

Watershed Health. A watershed is everything the land pours into a stream, and the stream keeps the record. The EPA's bioassessment method reads that record through the small creatures living in the gravel: mayflies and caddisflies mean clean water, only worms and midges mean trouble. Mastery looks like a person who can wade one riffle with a net and tell you how the whole valley is doing. That skill is built sample by sample. This packet is one of them: one site, one careful count, one entry in the long record of a stream.