Police are investigating the fatal shooting of a pet alpaca on a hobby farm at Nambrok in Victoria's east.
The owner of the property, Dawn Blackburn, said she went outside after hearing gunshots around 9:00pm last Tuesday night and found her alpaca with a gunshot wound to the neck.
"I went out there and I found Theo … dying on the ground with the three other animals in the paddock," she said.
Theo turned three years old the week before the incident.
Ms Blackburn said the shooting had left the whole family devastated.
"The other animals have been very, very skittish, the other alpaca is pining for his mate. Everybody is very distraught," she said.
Ms Blackburn said the shooter had been in touch offering to bury the body and pay for a replacement alpaca, to keep her surviving alpaca Alfie company.
The shooter told her it was an accident, and he mistook the alpaca for something else.
"I will have to [buy another alpaca], but at the moment it's too painful," she said.
Police say there have been reports of illegal hunting in the area, along the Sale–Cowwarr Road.
Victoria Police Inspector Mark Edwards said anyone with information about illegal shooting in the area last week is urged to contact CrimeStoppers.
"There will be people in that rural environment that know who the offenders are for this so what we're asking is for people to just give us that little piece of the puzzle that we need to be able to prosecute," Inspector Edwards said.
"It's really disturbing for the people who have lost their pet but also it's really, really dangerous to be shooting on someone else's private property."
