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Sharon Osbourne has reignited outrage at Donald Trump ’s sons over their love of shooting wildlife, after sharing a snap of them with their kill.

As Trump Sr headlined the Republican Party’s convention, the X Factor judge posted the sick photo of Donald Jr and Eric Trump proudly posing with a dead leopard on a hunting trip in Zimbabwe.

Sharon, 63 , an open critic of the US presidential candidate, wrote on Twitter and Instagram on Wednesday: “Really? A great example of humanity, killing animals in Africa?! Disgusting.”

The photo is one of many of the brothers with their “trophies”, bringing to mind US hunter Walter Palmer’s killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe last July.

Other snaps show the Trump brothers standing by animals they gunned down on two trips in 2010 and 2011, including antelope, waterbuck, two buffalo, a great warthog, a greater kudu and a civet cat.

Two particularly savage shots show a 12ft 8in crocodile hanging from a tree and Donald Jr, also known as Don, holding a dead elephant’s tail, hacked off as a trophy.

TV naturalist Chris Packham said: “They should feel utterly ashamed. And they’re not doing their dad any favours as a man campaigning to be president.

(Image: BBC)

“Posing alongside a dead animal like that is ridiculous and embarrassing in the 21st Century.

"Killing for pleasure has to involve a psychopathic element. I don’t think you can say they’re a direct mirror of their father, but it says something about their environment if that’s the way they’ve been brought up.”

(Image: Getty)

Donald Sr defended his sons’ hobby of hunting on African kill safaris.

He said after the photos first emerged in 2012: “My sons love to hunt. Eric is a hunter and I would say he puts it on a par with golf, if not ahead of golf. Don is a hunter.”

(Image: Reuters)

Adding the brothers are both members of the controversial National Rifle Association, Trump – himself a big supporter of gun ownership – said: “I am a big believer in the Second Amendment.

"They’re great marksman, great shots, they love it. I like golf. I don’t do that.”

(Image: HUNTING LEGENDS)

Carrying a small arsenal of rifles, Don, 38, and Eric, 32, were flown by helicopter around an area of Zimbabwe, southern Africa, reserved for hunting by a safari company called Hunting Legends.

The legal practice is known as canned hunting. This is where animals are bred in captivity before being released into a specific area, where they are stalked, killed and stuffed.

(Image: HUNTING LEGENDS)

The brothers would have been charged a hefty fee for every kill.

The price list quotes £46,000 to hunt an elephant, up to £27,000 to kill a big cat, or £6,500 for a crocodile.

But the Trump brothers should have no problem picking up the tab.

(Image: huntinglegends.co.za)

Their divorced parents Donald and Ivana are worth an estimated £3.4billion and £45million respectively.

The brothers are also executive vice presidents of the Trump Organisation, along with their sister Ivanka, 34.

Donald Jr said after the photos first emerged: “I have no regrets. Hunting isn’t about killing. Hunting and fishing makes you fall in love with the natural world.”

(Image: flickr)

The pictures were highlighted again last year when actress and animal rights activist Mia Farrow posted the message: “What sort of person could kill this beautiful animal? Trump sons could.”

The oldest of Trump’s five children, Donald Jr has played a key role throughout his father’s presidential campaign.

Many commentators believe his speech was one of the stars of the past week’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

And it was Donald Jr – who has confirmed he would like to run for office one day – who announced his dad had the votes needed to secure the party’s nomination as presidential candidate.

Yet public reaction to the brothers’ photos could still harm Trump’s reputation among moderate voters already unnerved by the billionaire’s tough public image.

That feeling was summed up by the Twitter response to the photos, with one user writing: “Of course they’re Trumps, who else could be so cruel?”