FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. – A wild hog weighing eleven-hundred pounds, bigger than the near-mythical "Hogzilla" caught in rural south Georgia a few years ago, has been been shot and killed in a suburban neighborhood.
William Coursey, an avid hunter who shot the hog in a neighbor's yard in Fayette County in the suburbs south of Atlanta, had it hanging from a tree in his front yard.
The Department of Natural Resources did not know whether the hog, one of four tearing up yards in the neighborhood for years, was a record for the state. Coursey said the other three hogs may have been killed previously.
Melissa Cummings of the D-N-R's public affairs department said — quote — "We don't keep records on hogs."
The D-N-R said the wild hogs can be dangerous and urged that wildlife experts be called to remove the animals when they are spotted.
Two years ago, a team of National Geographic experts confirmed south Georgia's "Hogzilla" was indeed real.
They also noted the super swine didn't quite live up to the one-thousand-pound 12-foot hype generated when Hogzilla was caught on a farm the previous summer and photographed hanging from a backhoe.
The experts exhumed the beast and estimated Hogzilla was probably seven and one-half to eight feet long, and weighed about 800 pounds. The confirmation came in a documentary aired on the National Geographic Channel.
Daryl Kirby, an editor with Georgia Outdoor News, said — quote — "Nobody keeps official records. But it's one heck of a hog."
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