The Sporting Shooters' Association of Australia has been forced to apologise for publishing the winner of a Greens photograph competition in a magazine article about a rival trophy-hunting competition.
Rival photography competitions were held by hunting and conservation groups in Narooma on the same weekend in June.
The HuntFest exhibition glorified shooting animals, while Animals in the Wild, judged by photographer Rex Dupain, protested against animal cruelty.
Narooma residents have been divided over the town hosting HuntFest, which includes ammunition displays and attracted 2000 visitors.
Photographer Michael Dahlem said he was "peeved" to find his image of a grass owl fleeing a combine harvester, which won the Greens competition, published the following month in NSW Shooter magazine.
"The competition was about protecting wildlife, and potential threats to wildlife," he said.
A Sporting Shooters' Association spokesman was puzzled when the mistake was pointed out. "I don't think they hunt owls," he said.
The association's NSW executive director, Diana Melham, wrote to Mr Dahlem on Friday to apologise.
"It was a very regrettable administrative error made during the process of compiling the July edition, whereby your winning photograph was mistakenly sent in place of the winning photograph from the HuntFest competition," she wrote.
Mr Dahlem said he accepted the association's apology.
Meanwhile, the Shooters and Fishers Party has appointed the SSAA's former communications manager, Tim Horan, as its NSW state director in the lead-up to the 2015 election.
Mr Horan is a former Labor staffer found corrupt by the Independent Commission Against Corruption in 2010 for rorting parliamentary entitlements.
Mr Horan blew the whistle on his employer, Penrith MP Karyn Paluzzano, but both were found corrupt by the ICAC.
Shooters MP Robert Brown said Mr Horan was the NSW party's first professional campaign director, as the party had previously relied on volunteers.
"It was actually Tim who first lodged the complaint with ICAC. Tim is a highly professional political campaigner, and the SFP were delighted to have been able to obtain his services," Mr Brown said.
