Georgia man kills huge hog

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.

“We don’t keep records on hogs,” said Melissa Cummings of the DNR’s public affairs department.

The wild hogs can be dangerous, the DNR said, urging 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 1,000-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 7-1/2 to 8 feet long, and weighed about 800 pounds. The confirmation came in a documentary aired on the National Geographic Channel.

Cummings said it wasn’t unusual for wild hogs to be found in northeast Georgia. “There are more in south Georgia, but they are scattered around the state.”

“Nobody keeps official records,” said Daryl Kirby, an editor with Georgia Outdoor News. “But it’s one heck of a hog.”