AMERICAN TV presenter Larysa Switlyk caused outrage on social media this week when she posted pictures allegedly taken during an organised 'wild goat hunt' on an Islay estate.

While the pictures of her with freshly shot non-native wild goats stirred up political controversy over the morality of the trophy-hunting business, it was the snap of Ms Switlyk with a deceased Blackie tup that incensed farming community commentators, who pointed out that it was plain illegal to shoot domesticated animals for sport

NSA Scotland chairman John Fyall commented: "This is a concern. I would say that it looks like a farmed sheep has been killed for sport and that is not what we keep domesticated sheep in pastoral systems for.

"The hunting of wild animals has long been part of Scotland's rural culture but the shooting of domesticated animals is reserved for injuries, dangerous animals and in the right humane circumstances for home consumption.

"There is no allowance for tourists killing domesticated animals and it could interfere with the rights we have managed to reserve for home consumers. I would never want folk taking shots at my animals," he stressed.

"I shoot to control predator populations and over-populated vermin. We farm sheep in a planned system and therefore they do not need shot. We would need to know more about the actual circumstances but on the views portrayed on twitter I cannot endorse this - the picture of the Blackface tup is actually quite alarming."