Tale of 1,000lb ‘Hogzilla’ grows as guide hogs limelight

AROUND Georgia parts, they are calling it Hogzilla: a 12ft-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 Faulknerian myth has 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.

Chris Griffin said he killed the beast last month 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 6ft 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 Mr Griffin has 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.

Mr 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.

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.