It’s been nearly four years since The News Courier announced wild hogs were headed this way.

One hunter confirmed Wednesday that they’re here, they aren’t a threat and they make for good eating.

Robert Norman, along with friends Jamey Hobbs and Corey Wilson and their dogs, hunted down and killed four of the beasts near Easter Ferry Road about three weeks ago.

He said three of the animals were young and edible and subsequently so tender “you could cut them with a fork,” but a fourth kill was old and had to be skinned and fed as a reward to the dogs.

From photos, the old hog appears to be a veritable “Hogzilla” sprawled out in the bed of a pickup truck, but Norman said he probably weighed no more than 250 pounds.

Norman knows what he’s talking about. He does measurements for Weiser Weight & Tusk Trophy Wild Boar Record Books, the bible in hog circles.

“The boar we killed had lost his cutters and had only one whittler,” said Norman.

“Cutters” are the tusks, or canine teeth that grow up from the bottom. The “whittlers” are the top canine teeth in hogs. Norman said hogs use the whittler to sharpen the cutter.

Norman said that although the boar looks large in the photo, he is not as large as the 264-pounder he killed several years ago.

“A buddy of mine killed one over by Anderson that weighed 310 pounds and had 2-inch cutters,” said Norman. “The one I caught in Limestone County was only 264 pounds, but it had 3-inch cutters. It was a big hog.”

The other three feral hogs taken on the same day weighed about 125 pounds each and were ideal for barbecuing, Norman said.

“When they’re small, they’re real good eating — better than a deer,” he said. “They don’t have that wild taste.”

Norman said feral hogs are shy by nature and prefer to hang out in creek bottoms. However, he said the big guy they took down that day probably ventured out of the creek bottom and into some farmer’s cornfield a few times. But generally feral hogs do not have any fat.

“If you want to make sausage out of them you have to add fat,” he said. “They run off all their fat just like a deer.”

Norman said feral hogs are known to travel as much as 10 miles a day when they are on the move.

“They’re just like an armadillo or a fire ant,” he said. “You didn’t see them around when I was a kid and now it’s wild hogs. You never saw them when I was a kid. There are a lot of them over in Mississippi and they just migrated to Limestone County.

“The county is just like an island with rivers on all sides. Hogs can swim just like a deer. It just took them a while to get to Limestone County.”

Norman said feral hogs have a bad rep for aggressiveness due to “old wives’ tales” and Hollywood.

“These are wild animals,” he said. “They know what man can do so they try to stay our of our way. There are lots of horror movies about them, but they don’t attack people. They don’t chase people down and all that crap. If they get cornered by dogs, they’ll defend themselves.”

Norman said animal rights groups have also commented that it is cruel to use dogs in the hunt for wild boars, but he said with the cur dogs he uses, hunting comes naturally to them.

“They are born to hunt,” he said. “Like I’ve been a hunter all of my life and if I couldn’t hunt, I mean what would be the use?”