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By Shaila Dewan
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

March 19, 2005

ALAPAHA, Ga. – Few episodes in this modern age have displayed the Southern talent for tall tales like the legend of Hogzilla, the allegedly 12-foot, 1,000-pound wild hog shot and killed on a south Georgia farm last June.

Documented by only a single photograph before the carcass was buried, Hogzilla drew television crews from as far as Japan and appeared on the cover of Weekly World News. The pig became the theme of Alapaha's annual festival. People from California and New Jersey called to order hog T-shirts.

So tall did the tale become that in November, a team of scientists exhumed Hogzilla and went at him with calipers and DNA tests. Now all of Berrien County awaits their findings, which are to be broadcast on the National Geographic Channel tomorrow at 5 and 8 p.m.

Some people say the hog had to have been raised in a pen to get that big. Others think there was no hog at all. No one figured the argument would ever be resolved. And, anyway, that was not the point. Asked whether she believed Hogzilla was real, Beverly Moore, a retired bookkeeper eating lunch at Flander's Cafe in Alapaha, raised her eyebrows and said, "It's a real story."

Few hunting yarns could stand up to a posse of Ph.D.s in yellow hazard suits. In fact, new technology has generally made it easier – not harder – to practice the art of embellishment, said Wiley Prewitt, a collector of hunting and fishing lore in Kilmichael, Miss. There is a cottage industry in making realistic sets of antlers out of resin to mount as trophies, he said, and photographs no longer back up a story.

"Some guy kills a deer and takes a picture of it," Prewitt said. "He'll take it to his buddy who's got all the computer software and they'll turn it into a world record."

But two people were eager for the credibility they hoped a scientific investigation would bring: Ken Holyoak, who owns Ken's Hatchery and Fish Farms Inc., and his former employee Chris Griffin, who killed Hogzilla with a single shot last June. The men have had a falling-out over the hog, and Griffin now fixes flats at the Wal-Mart in nearby Fitzgerald.

Holyoak, who also operates hog hunts on his land, allowed National Geographic to dig up Hogzilla because, he said, he wanted the free advertising, and he thought the hog might be a world record.

Griffin says he is tired of doubters. "They're going to eat a whole lot of humble pie come Sunday evening," he said.

Drinking a mixture of Fanta Cherry and Pibb Extreme sodas on his lunch break, Griffin, 32, told the story he has told a thousand times: He was picking up after hunters when he saw the hog. He grabbed a rifle from his truck and fired. "I shot him, and he turned around and walked off, and I thought, how'd I miss something that big?" Griffin said. He followed the hog into the swamps, where it collapsed and died. Griffin managed to drag it out with a backhoe.

Holyoak said he measured Hogzilla "with a ruler" and drove the hog in his flatbed truck to a peanut scale. The meat was too gamy to eat, he said, and stuffing the pig would have been too expensive, so he told Griffin to bury it.

But before they laid Hogzilla to rest, Holyoak took a picture of the pig trussed up by the hind legs, dangling from the backhoe. Later, he had six people sign affidavits saying they had seen the 1,000-pound wild hog. Each signer circled "alive" or "dead."

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ya i saw that pic and it looks real i dunno if it was farm raised or what but i dont think it was wild and if it was how did no one see it befor a 1000lbs hog i dunno but i do think it was a real pig maybe the goverment did it and it excaped ?:D

Does anyone know where to go to see a picture?

Geeez Zuzz - That's a Hog! I'm puzzled as to why the guy buried such a Prize animal??

Im puzzled as to why theres no shadow on the guy from the hog, yet he has a shadow from himself behind him? The pic looks fake, but maybe the story is real. Wish it was, it would be fun to say "what if?"

Go to www.goodhunting.com Check out the campfire chat section and there is a pic of this hog and another monster(1100lbs) killed in Florida. I'd pull the pics here but I aint so smarts when it comes to these here fancy computers! LOL

So what did the people at National Geographic have to say is it fact or fiction? That sure looks like on big pig to me.

The facts are the hog only measured 7 1/2 to 8 feet not the 12' measurement .it weighed around 700lbs,DNA testing showed it to be 1/2 wild boar and 1/2 domestic pig.Abda abda abda thats's all folks

Lastnight i saw the Nation Geographic special on this hog and the life of wild hogs and how they are spreading threw the states. Within the next 5-10 years they said wild hogs will be abundant threw every state in the USA and most of Canada. If you have national geographic channel you should catch the hour long special they had on this pig and pig lifestyles as domesticated and those in the wild. Did you know pigs are the smartest domesticated animal? I didnt know that till i saw the special. I taped it for a few friends it was such a good showing.

There was a TV show on the other night called animal X - the topic was Hogzilla

They actually went out found where this Pig was burried and ran some tests - DNA skull and other bone measurments-

they determined that the hog was a hybrid about 7 years old - part hampshire and part wild bore -
They also said that the hog was closer to 8' than 12 and about 800 lbs not 1000. Either way it is the largest hog ever taken and they said that with it running around for the last 7 years in the wild with other wild boards that its genes are now out there and there is the possibility for other enormous pigs to be runnign around the swamps - but they seem to think it has something to do with the pig sneaking in and eating some of the high protien feed at the ranch on which it was shot -

They raise some species of fish - can't remember the name of the fish but it looks like a blue gill on steroids - Its the size of a dinner plate and a little bigger -

I am quessing it will be the biggest hog taken for a long time before you see anything even close to that size again.

i think its real but if hes burry it it may be fake and he dont want anone to know its fake

i wanted to see the animal x episode of it but missed it ill see it again though when its a re run