Working to end animal sacrifice at the Gadhimai Festival
In disturbing footage filmed using drones, beheaded, dead animals are shown littering the ground, their heads left bleeding alongside their lifeless bodies.
In addition, our investigative team documented:
- sexual abuse of some of the animals at the temple
- animals transported to the temple in unsafe and unhygienic conditions
- animals hanging upside down on bicycles
- starving animals without enough food or water
- calves, waiting to be slaughtered, who died due to cold temperatures
- devotees cutting the ears off goats and buffaloes, leaving them to bleed
Animal Equality has been actively campaigning to end animal sacrifice at the Gadhimai festival since 2014, with investigators and volunteers on the ground in 2014 and 2019/2020.
Aside from our work on the ground during the Gadhimai festival, we actively campaigned to stop the killing at the festival for several months, gathering over 100,000 international signatures urging the Nepalese government to ban the slaughter of animals. We also collaborated with the Red Cross Society of Nepal to organize a blood donation camp, where devotees could give their blood to honor the deity instead of sacrificing animal blood.
