Maybe it was a case of hogs gone wild, at least in the neighborhood. It seems there is another side to the story of the Brooks Beast, the 1,100-pound hog shot Jan. 3 while grazing in a yard on Chappell Road.

The hog’s owner has been cited on previous occasions for large hogs running loose from the property at 140 Matthews Road in south Fayette County, according to official records.

Even so, wild hog experts are still in the process of having the monster hog included on the wild side of the record books.

Matthews Road owner Adrienne Grooms was cited in 2004 for hogs running at large and again in April 2006, according to Fayette County records. The April 2006 citation said Grooms failed to restrain large pigs that had been “witnessed loose off the property.”

Fayette Animal Control Director Miguel Abi-Hassan said Animal Control had received multiple calls about hogs from the residence as recently as one week prior to the Jan. 3 date when the large hog was shot on Chappell Road.

He said an investigation had already been initiated prior to that date, but could not elaborate further because the investigation was ongoing.

Animal Control was also in the process of obtaining the services of a contractor with equipment capable of handling and transporting very large animals, he said.

And Abi-Hassan has no doubt that the Brooks Beast called the Matthews Road address home.

“The pig lived there. Other pigs live there,” he said. “If you control an animal’s dwelling and feeding, you own it.”

Attempts to contact the hog’s owner were unsuccessful.

For his part, Bill Coursey, the area resident who shot the hog Jan. 3, said he did not know ownership was involved.

“If I’d known it belonged to someone I would have never shot it,” Coursey said.

Contacted Monday, Hog Hunter Magazine Senior Field Editor Gary Dowdy said the 1,100-pound behemoth is still being considered a feral animal, one that may have escaped a domestic surrounding and returned, at least in part, to its wild state.

Dowdy said he is working with other wildlife experts in Georgia and Texas to confirm his conclusion. Some of those experts, said Dowdy, consider pigs to become feral in as little as six weeks.

“It has some of the physical characteristics of a domestic hog and a wild boar. By its looks it’s not domestic. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a feral animal,” Dowdy said. “Even if somebody did own it, they did not keep it up and it was still running wild.”

Time and experts will tell if the bigger-than-life Brooks Beast makes its way into the record books.

Abi-Hassan said the current incident is only one of many that generate questions and concerns from county residents. Fayette County Animal Shelter and Animal Control serves as a clearinghouse for those questions, he said.

“I would hope that citizens would know we are here to answer questions,” said Abi-Hassan. “If we can’t answer them we can direct them to where they can get answers.”

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