Like you, I was indignant when I saw those pictures of hunter Larysa Switlyk posing with the wild goat she had shot on Islay, Scotland. I thought: “Why isn’t she at home threatening Democrats, like normal American psychos?”

Predictably, there was an outbreak of humanity on social media. Trolls, who earlier had been red in tooth and claw as they eviscerated each other over their differing views on Brexit, herded together instinctively to hunt the hunter Larysa. High-profile Scottish voices howled their outrage. Judy Murray, mother of docile house-trained tennis player Andy, described the hunt as “disgraceful”, and called on the Scottish government to stop “similar events” from taking place.

So insistent were the yelps of the offended that the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, had to take time off from sitting on her hands to mollify her unsettled brood. She tweeted, “Totally understandable why the images from Islay of dead animals is so unsettling and offensive to people.” Sturgeon promised her government would “review the situation” and consider whether changes to the law were required.

This is the beauty of living in a small country. One barely even needs to tweet. Just shout up at the window of Bute House and, if Sturgeon’s in and not too busy, she’ll listen to your troubles and send you on your way with a cheery smile and the promise of some instant inaction. These days she has bigger prey in her sights. If you’re very still and patient and have a pair of field binoculars handy you can often spot Sturgeon crouching among the trees in Charlotte Square avidly watching BBC Parliament on her laptop as she waits for Theresa May to be leapt upon by mangy Jacob and the other hyenas in the European Research Group.

Post something on Facebook about Yemen right now and it’s good for, what, four or five likes maybe

I don’t exempt myself from scorn. My own dudgeon on reading about Goatgate was high. In fact, I had to nip out for extra dudgeon when I saw the additional photos Switlyk had posted online of her fellow hunter buddy, Jason. There he was posing like Zoolander in his fetching camo-wear while squatting beside a good-sized beast he’d just wasted, its horns artfully arranged as a V sign to anyone about to reach for their angry face emoji.

It was on Byres Road, as I picked my way through the recumbent prides of emaciated homeless people on my way to the dudgeon shelf in Waitrose, that I experienced my first glimmers of unease about my righteous indignation. By the in-store food bank I scrolled through Facebook on my phone and noted that the post preceding the pictures of the dead goats was one of similarly dead kids in Yemen.

I know what you’re thinking, again, the same as me – pictures of kids dying, especially foreign kids in faraway atrocities, don’t seem to carry much mileage online these days, do they? That market peaked three years ago with the Syrian kid on the Turkish beach. Post something on Facebook about Yemen right now and it’s good for, what, four or five likes maybe, not worth the investment of one’s social-media credibility capital. I scrolled on and there, ah yes, yet more terrorised folk in Gaza being shot at by the Israeli military. Remember Gaza? Big in the spring, but nowadays you’re looking at three maybe four likes and, if you’re lucky, a couple of purple-faced emojis.

I scrolled on further to Switlyk. She was claiming to have had death threats. Death purely by social media of course, which is understandable – the postage rates to Florida, her home state, are crippling. In her defence Switlyk claims that cyber critics who protest her actions are “ignorant” and need to be educated on “hunting and conservation”. Whereas Jeffrey Flocken, who is senior vice president of Humane Society International and someone who actually knows about hunting and preservation as opposed to killing and selfie-grinning, said this: “Hunters are not like natural predators. They target the largest specimens; those with the biggest tusks, manes, antlers or horns.”

This reminded me of David Attenborough. He once recounted that groups of young rogue elephants had started terrorising some local villages. Researchers found that this was due to hunters having killed the biggest elephants, the herd’s leaders, leaving the young with no role models to emulate in behaviour as they grew to maturity. Draw your own anthropomorphic comparisons.

So my tip for the social-media stock exchange – forget Larysa Switlyk. Post about the new Laurel and Hardy film. In no time flat you’ll be run over by a stampede of big red love hearts.

• Ian Pattison is a playwright and novelist