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I keep hoping the American public will tire of giant hog stories, but that doesn't seem the case. Fueled by the Internet, a euphemistic term for gossip at the speed of light, new versions of Jurassic Pork show up on a regular basis.

The National Geographic Channel dug up the giant porker nicknamed "Hogzilla" from a couple of years back and made a television special out of its decaying remains.

The National Geographic Society should shut down its network before 24-hour programming waters down all trust in what was once a noble endeavor. Sandwiched between legitimate nature shows, I've seen the National Geographic Channel anthropomorphize wildlife to a degree that would make Walt Disney blush.

You probably saw the most recent King Kong pig story. An 11-year-old Alabama boy killed a hog reported to have weighed 1,050 pounds. The story ran in this and many other daily newspapers.

I was reminded of the first giant hog story I saw. It was from the Junction, Texas, area, where a bowhunter supposedly killed a monstrous hog. I don't recall the exact weight, but the black hog in the photo looked roughly the size of an Angus steer.

There was another giant hog reported from Oklahoma. It was about the size of a polar bear. The big pig had wandered into the outskirts of some rural town and was eating garbage, and lots of it. Then there was Hogzilla and, most recently, the 'Bama boar that outweighed one side of the Crimson Tide's offensive line.

There's just one problem with all these stories: Wild hogs don't get that big. A hog that tips the scales to four figures didn't waddle far from a feed trough.

Texas has more wild hogs than any other state. From the Sabine River to the Rio Grande, I've seen thousands of wild porkers.

In a blind overlooking the Rio Grande one afternoon, I killed 10 hogs with six shots in what I like to call the shootout at Pork Chop Hill. All 10 may have totaled 1,000 pounds. The biggest hog I've ever tried to handle was one that my son killed near Albany. I think it may have weighed 300 pounds.

We could have staged photos with that giant black bruiser and claimed that it weighed 500 pounds. People who don't know much about wild hogs would not have argued. It was huge.

Billy Higginbotham knows about hogs. He's an East Texas biologist who has cut up his share of pork.

"Most hunters don't have access to scales with enough capacity to weigh a really big hog," Higginbotham said. "They guess at the weights, and their guesses are always on the high side. I think the biggest wild hog that I've seen may have weighed 400 pounds, but I didn't weigh him. Two hundred pounds is a big one, and 300 pounds is a giant hog."

A giant wild hog, that is. A five-pound piglet raised for the stock show may top 250 pounds in six months, according to Jodi Sterle, a swine specialist with Texas A&M's extension service.

The show hog lounges in a pen all day. Highly nutritious food is delivered by room service. The biggest domestic hog Sterle has ever seen weighed about 800 pounds and was 6 or 7 years old. Even in a show barn, she's never seen a hog that looked like the Alabama bruiser.

Neither has Johnnie Hudman, wildlife manager for Stasney's Cook Ranch in Shackelford County. Hudman has guided hunters to hundreds of wild hogs in the last 20 years. The biggest weighed 464 pounds on cattle scales.

"I saw one on the Nail Ranch that may have weighed 500 pounds, but we never got him killed," said Hudman, who was field dressing a hog when I called. "We don't see a 300-pounder every year."

Hogzilla, the 'Bama Boar or any other porker that weighs 1,000 pounds may have been wandering around in the woods, but he was looking for the feed trough. In case you missed the small follow-up story to the 'Bama Boar, his name was Fred. A farmer admitted selling him to the shooting preserve four days before he showed up in national news. Wild hogs don't get that big.