SquirrelsaurusR
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Updated: 02:24 PM EST
Tall Tales and the Unlarded Truth About Hogzilla
By SHAILA DEWAN, The New York Times
ALAPAHA, Ga. (March 19) - Few episodes in this modern age have drawn the Southern talent for tall tales like the legend of Hogzilla, the alleged 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 away as Japan and appeared on the cover of Weekly World News. The pig became the theme of the town'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 on Sunday night.
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 if 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," Mr. 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, and Chris Griffin, his former employee, who said he killed Hogzilla with a single shot last June. The men had a falling out over who deserved proceeds from the sale of the Hogzilla photograph, and Mr. Griffin now fixes flats at the Wal-Mart in nearby Fitzgerald.
Mr. Holyoak has a knack for publicity, and has a wall of articles about his efforts to raise bullfrogs in captivity and his record-breaking fish breeds, like one he calls the Georgia Giant Hybrid Bream. He has theorized that Hogzilla grew so big by feasting on the special fish food used on the farm.
Mr. 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.
A thousand pounds is not extraordinary for a pen-raised hog. But a feral pig or a true wild boar -characterized by tusks, black hair and long legs - would top out closer to 500 pounds, and a typical one of each weighs in at about 150 pounds. Interbreeding with farm animals is, of course, a possibility.
Mr. Griffin says he is tired of doubters. "They're going to eat a whole lot of humble pie come Sunday evening," he said. "I'm going to be giggling and laughing."
Drinking a mixture of Fanta Cherry and Pibb Extreme on his lunch break, Mr. 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?" Mr. Griffin said. He said he followed the hog into the swamps, where it collapsed and died. Mr. Griffin said he managed to drag it out with a backhoe.
Mr. Holyoak said he measured Hogzilla "with a ruler" and drove the hog in his flatbed truck to a peanut scale. The meat was too gamey to eat, he said, and the pig was too expensive to stuff, so he told Mr. Griffin to bury it.
But before they laid Hogzilla to rest, Mr. Holyoak shot 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").
In Alapaha, several townspeople said it did not matter if Hogzilla turned out to be a hoax. "The Legend of Hogzilla" had proved more popular, they said, than previous parade themes like "Saluting Our Firemen" and "Good Old Days on the Farm."
Hogzilla is not the first Alapaha legend, and he probably will not be the last. In the 1970's, the town had a peg-legged bigfoot that left mysterious tracks at night. He has been in the parade too.
"First there was the bigfoot, then there was the hog," said a man at City Hall who refused to give his name and said he was sick to death of hearing about Hogzilla. "And you heard a big old snake crawled across Highway 82 the other day."
Renee Copeland, the city clerk, looked up in surprise at this bit of news. Then she asked, "How big was it?"
03-19-05 14:30 EST
Tall Tales and the Unlarded Truth About Hogzilla
By SHAILA DEWAN, The New York Times
ALAPAHA, Ga. (March 19) - Few episodes in this modern age have drawn the Southern talent for tall tales like the legend of Hogzilla, the alleged 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 away as Japan and appeared on the cover of Weekly World News. The pig became the theme of the town'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 on Sunday night.
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 if 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," Mr. 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, and Chris Griffin, his former employee, who said he killed Hogzilla with a single shot last June. The men had a falling out over who deserved proceeds from the sale of the Hogzilla photograph, and Mr. Griffin now fixes flats at the Wal-Mart in nearby Fitzgerald.
Mr. Holyoak has a knack for publicity, and has a wall of articles about his efforts to raise bullfrogs in captivity and his record-breaking fish breeds, like one he calls the Georgia Giant Hybrid Bream. He has theorized that Hogzilla grew so big by feasting on the special fish food used on the farm.
Mr. 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.
A thousand pounds is not extraordinary for a pen-raised hog. But a feral pig or a true wild boar -characterized by tusks, black hair and long legs - would top out closer to 500 pounds, and a typical one of each weighs in at about 150 pounds. Interbreeding with farm animals is, of course, a possibility.
Mr. Griffin says he is tired of doubters. "They're going to eat a whole lot of humble pie come Sunday evening," he said. "I'm going to be giggling and laughing."
Drinking a mixture of Fanta Cherry and Pibb Extreme on his lunch break, Mr. 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?" Mr. Griffin said. He said he followed the hog into the swamps, where it collapsed and died. Mr. Griffin said he managed to drag it out with a backhoe.
Mr. Holyoak said he measured Hogzilla "with a ruler" and drove the hog in his flatbed truck to a peanut scale. The meat was too gamey to eat, he said, and the pig was too expensive to stuff, so he told Mr. Griffin to bury it.
But before they laid Hogzilla to rest, Mr. Holyoak shot 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").
In Alapaha, several townspeople said it did not matter if Hogzilla turned out to be a hoax. "The Legend of Hogzilla" had proved more popular, they said, than previous parade themes like "Saluting Our Firemen" and "Good Old Days on the Farm."
Hogzilla is not the first Alapaha legend, and he probably will not be the last. In the 1970's, the town had a peg-legged bigfoot that left mysterious tracks at night. He has been in the parade too.
"First there was the bigfoot, then there was the hog," said a man at City Hall who refused to give his name and said he was sick to death of hearing about Hogzilla. "And you heard a big old snake crawled across Highway 82 the other day."
Renee Copeland, the city clerk, looked up in surprise at this bit of news. Then she asked, "How big was it?"
03-19-05 14:30 EST
