So why have blood sports got your goat?

I’D just walked in to the living room and sat down and there on the television was Glasgow. Excellent. I was in Sydney, staying with family friends I’m persuading to come and visit Scotland.

Anthony Bourdain was narrating an episode of his series Parts Unknown. Excellent, I thought, the late chef will tip them in favour.

There he was, in the Old College Bar on the High Street, drinking a pint. Drinking a pint and explaining Glasgow’s hard booze culture. And there he was learning from former Detective Chief Superintendent Jim Carnochan of the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit about Glasgow’s knife crime past.

Now from comedian Janey Godley he’s hearing about the city’s tough humour. Next, a self-defence expert is demonstrating how to tackle an assailant with a blade.

Ah, there’s some deep fried food. All the boxes ticked and I’m sure Visitscotland would not approve.

But then we’re off to the Highlands. Maybe the Highlands will persuade my Australian friends the long journey is worth it.

Bourdain meets his good friend AA Gill and describes the delights of a log fire and a grand country estate. Had the art of coorie been invented by Visitscotland back in 2015, this might have been it.

But what are the lads up to? Well, that great Scottish tradition – deer stalking. Off they go, togged up in tweeds for a posh boy jaunt about the hills.

The stag is majestic, unaware – and very quickly dead. The ghillie scoops some gore from the corpse and smears Bourdain’s face while the chaps all heartily laugh.

An old tradition it is, and not one that causes a great deal of outrage.

So who could have guessed – against a current affairs backdrop of appalling racism on a Ryanair flight and a Tory MSP saying disgusting things about the reproductive rights of struggling families – that what’s agitated the internet is a dead goat?

Pity poor Larysa Switlyk, a selfdescribed “hardcore huntress” who posted a boastful account of her latest kill to social media and now is making international headlines.

You’ll remember the outrage at Dr Walter Palmer, an American dentist who caused consternation and fury after hunting and killing Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe? Well, Scotland, we are having our own Cecil the Lion moment.

Ms Switlyk, posed in full camouflage regalia and admiring her slaughtered prey’s impressive curled horns, captioned her photo with, “we hunted hard for a big one for two days and finally got on this group. Made a perfect 200 yard shot and dropped him”.

I cannot speak for the goats of Islay, where this poor beast was targeted, but I have met his cousins on Lewis and found the issue not to be stalking the goats but to be escaping those curious about my packed lunch.

Although this goat has no name or backstory, Ms Switlyk misjudged the mood. The internet is not happy and calls for Something To Be Done. Of course, there is now a petition demanding the banning of trophy hunting in Scotland. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was straight in about it with a tweet reading, “[The Scottish Government] will review the current situation and consider whether changes to the law are required.”

A Government statement was released saying similar, adding that responsible and appropriate culling of animals is a necessary part of sustainable land management.

We are still in grouse hunting season, a popular pastime of the Royal Family. In fact, the public was treated in August this year to the news that Prince George, five, was reportedly taken on his first grouse shoot by his parents on the Balmoral estate.

So why are we more sympathetic to goats than grouse? One of the complaints detailed in the online petition calling for action is that “Ms Switlyk has used her photos to advertise hunting experience tours to an American and international audience”.

Swaggering on social media about one’s kill isn’t the done thing. The rich and the royals fell stags and shoot grouse but they do it discreetly. Some are shocked that tourists would travel to Scotland for bloodsports but bloodsports are part of the life of the country.

The argument for hunting trips is, as the Scottish Government statement points out, that estate management involves the culling of animal species to prevent overpopulation. The goats are not native to Islay and they have no natural predators to control their numbers. Previously contraceptive darts have been used to prevent them breeding. I’m sure Ms Switlyk – who has now received death threats online herself – would argue that she’s doing her bit for conservation.

Scottish Greens MSP Mark Ruskell, urged the Scottish Government to “make it known that bloodsport participants are unwelcome to visit Scotland for the barbaric practice”. Who wants to be the one to tell the Queen?

Now that goats have united the political divide, if we really want to have a conversation about hobby hunting in Scotland, it would be sensible to consider all creatures great and small rather than act on a hair-trigger response to sights we find distasteful.

Swaggering on social media about one’s kill isn’t the done thing. The rich and the royals fell stags and shoot grouse but they do it discreetly