Slaughter of thousands of animals as sacrifice in Nepal

I just took action online on the humane society website to try to stop the needless suffering of hundreds of thousands of animals during a religious festival in Nepal next week. Please help!

Every five years, hundreds of men are licensed to kill buffalo, pigs, chickens, rats, goats, and pigeons, receiving a fee for each animal they take. It is a bloodbath, as the animals are chased and hacked to death with knives in a competition to kill as many as possible within two days.

The ‘mother of all sacrifices’ is at Gadhimai Jatra in Bara district in the south of Nepal. This festival is held once every five years. Last time 20,000 buffaloes were killed as well as an unknown number of other animals, including rats, snakes, pigeons, chicken, ducks, goats and sheep. The total number of animals killed in the span of just two days was estimated to be 200,000. This year the organisers aim to sacrifice no less than half a million animals. Local communities are being pressurised to increase the numbers; each village committee is supposed to pledge one thousand animals.

Sacrifice in itself is gruesome. Unsystematic mass sacrifice such as the one in Gadhimai is no less than barbaric. The worst killings are those of panchhbali – five offerings – in which the throats of five kinds of animals (buffaloes, goats, pigs, roosters and rats) are slit with a knife. It is not done quickly. The animals die a slow, extremely cruel, violent death while the priests sprinkle the blood across the idol and its surroundings.

Right after the panchhbali, it is the buffaloes’ turn. Wielding swords, men enter a fenced yard where around 20,000 buffaloes are kept, and start hacking at the buffaloes’ necks. As the killers cannot chop off the buffaloes’ heads at once, they first cut the hind legs. After the animal falls on the ground the men hack until the buffalo’s head is separated from the body. It takes up to twenty five attempts to kill a big buffalo. The suffering is unimaginable.

Please join me in writing to the Nepalese government officials to stop this cruelty before it starts. It will only take a minute and the link is below.:

https://secure.humanesociety.org/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=4287&autologin=true&JServSessionIdr003=qedpyujzq1.app305a

Thank you.

what they do is disgusting. they should be hacked up instead of the animals.