Wild Boar Hunting

In Georgia, they call it Hogzilla: a
12-foot-long wild hog recently killed on a
plantation and now quickly becoming a
part of local legend.

The plantation's owner claims the hog
weighed 1,000 pounds and had 9-inch
tusks. But few people have actually seen
the hog -- the only proof being a photo
that shows the dead beast hanging from
a rope.

Whether the hog ever actually existed or
is some sort of myth, it has definitely
been the topic of conversation in small
towns across southern Georgia.

"People just back up and ask 'Is it real?' They can't believe that there's a hog
that big in the woods," said Drew White, who has a copy of the photo on display
at an auto parts store in Tifton, about 17 miles away.

Chris Griffin killed the beast in June, 2003 at the River Oak Plantation, where
he is a hunting guide and has been showing off the picture around this small
farming community ever since. The hog is nearly twice as long as the 6-foot-tall
Griffin, who is seen standing next to it in the photo. "They say 'Man, you look
like a dwarf compared to that thing," he said.

The picture is all Griffin had to back up his claims. He and Ken Holyoak, owner
of the plantation, buried the beast on the property and did not want to hassle
with slaughtering it since the meat of large feral hogs is typically not very good.

Holyoak said he decided that the hog's head also wasn't worth keeping because
it was too large to mount on a wall. He said the head has the diameter of a tire
on a compact car. "We had to lift him with a backhoe," he said.

No one maintains official records on hog kills in Georgia. But Department of
Natural Resources biologist Kent Kammermeyer, who helped write a booklet on
feral-hog problems in the state, said he has never heard of one as large as
Hogzilla.

Holyoak said the plantation's previous record was a 695-pound hog shot several
years ago. Enough wild hogs roam Holyoak's plantation that he has made it a
side business to allow people to hunt them, but he said "Hogzilla" was too big to
let someone else shoot.

"We killed it because we didn't want to take a chance of him getting away.
Somebody else would have shot it," he said.

Feral hogs, popularly known as wild hogs, are domestic hogs that escaped from
farms and began living off the land. They lay waste to corn and peanut fields
and deprive more than 100 species -- including squirrels and deer -- of food.

"It's a big problem and it's getting worse," Kammermeyer said. "If you have a
lot of hogs, you're going to have problems. Hogs are very aggressive. They run
deer off and they can be dangerous if wounded or cornered."

Holyoak said he had to climb into a deer stand a few years back to escape a
raging hog that circled around for six hours, foaming at the mouth and snapping
at branches. "They say bears get mad when you mess with their babies,"
Holyoak said. "Hogs don't need a reason to get mad and come after you."

A team of National Geographic experts has confirmed south Georgia's monster hog, known to locals as
Hogzilla, was indeed real -- and really, really big.

They also noted the super swine didn't quite live up to the 1,000-pound, 12-foot
hype generated when Hogzilla was caught on a farm last summer and
photographed hanging from a backhoe.

Donning biohazard suits to exhume the behemoth's smelly remains, the experts
estimated Hogzilla was probably only 7 1/2 to 8 feet long, and weighed about
800 pounds.

The confirmation came in a documentary aired on the National Geographic
Channel; it will be rebroadcast.

"He was an impressive beast. He was definitely a freak of nature," said
documentary producer Nancy Donnelly.

She said Hogzilla's tusks -- one measuring nearly 18 inches and the other nearly
16 inches -- set a new Safari Club International North American free-range
record.

That wasn't good enough for Ken Holyoak, owner of the 1,500-acre fish farm
and hunting preserve where Hogzilla was shot by guide Chris Griffin.

"I need to stress that they did not have that much to work with, seeing as how
the poor beast had been underground for nearly six months," he said.

Holyoak said Hogzilla weighed in at half a ton on his farm scales, and that he
personally measured the hog's length at 12 feet while the freshly killed beast
was dangling by straps from a backhoe.

"As with any organic being after death, tissues will decompose and the body will
atrophy, making actual measurements change over time," Holyoak said. "Have
you ever seen a raisin after it was a grape?"

Donnelly said the experts allowed for some shrinkage in making their final
estimate.

Despite the dispute, this town 180 miles south of Atlanta has already adopted
Hogzilla as its own. It went with a Hogzilla theme for its fall festival, with a
parade featuring a Hogzilla princess, children in pink pig outfits and a float
carrying a Hogzilla replica.

"Our insides were just bubbling," said Darlene Turner, who hosted a party to
watch the documentary. "At first, I was afraid it might be an embarrassment.
But now I wish everybody could see the documentary. It would take the doubt
out of people's minds."