Help End Animal Sacrifice
The largest ritual animal killing in the world takes place every five years. Animal Equality’s efforts have led to a 70% reduction of the animals killed, saving thousands of animals from a violent death.
It is happening again this year, and animals facing the worst cruelty need you more than ever!
What is the Gadhimai Festival?
The largest ritual animal killing in the world and held every five years at the Gadhimai temple in Nepal. The attendees believe that sacrificing animal blood will bring them good fortune. Many animals, including water buffalos and goats and other animals are forced to walk for hours, or days, without food and water to get to the temple only to be slaughtered.
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 to report on the horrors inflicted on helpless animals before and during the festival.
The temple committee assigns slaughter licenses to chosen devotees. Most of the executioners don’t have experience in slaughtering animals, and were not able to behead the animals in one attempt.
OUR WORK TO END ANIMAL SACRIFICE AT THE GADHIMAI FESTIVAL
Campaigning and collaborative efforts since 2014 have resulted in a dramatic reduction in the number of large animals sacrificed compared to 2009, when approximately 200,000 large animals were killed. Most recently, at the 2019 Gadhimai festival, our exclusive drone footage revealed only a few thousands large animals were killed. Though we mourn the tragic number of lives still lost, we are heartened to know our efforts have been working.
We’ve worked to reduce and eliminate animals slaughtered at festival by sending investigators into Nepal to document the brutality. Releasing these investigations to reveal what really happens at the Gadhimai Temple. In response to our footage, the public outcry was felt across the world. We were also joined in 2014 on the ground by journalists from the Wall Street Journal, further amplifying our work. In 2014 and 2019 Animal Equality used drones to capture footage of hundreds of animals slaughtered in front of one another.
We have organized protests at Indian embassies around the world, asking the government of India to restrict the movement of animals across the Indo-Nepali border. Our combined work led to a measure by the Indian government that banned the transport of animals into Nepal for the festival. We the partnered with local officials and volunteers at border crossing checkpoints to enforce the ban, leading to thousands of animals spared.
The occasion is a ceremony to offer a blood sacrifice. In an effort to prevent more violence, in 2019 we 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. And in 2020, our international petition asking the Nepali government to ban animal sacrifice has been signed by tens of thousands of people and gains more every day. With your continued help, we will end animal sacrifice at Gadhimai for good.
Ending
Animal Cruelty Worldwide
Animal Equality is an international organization working with society, governments, and companies to end cruelty to farmed animals. Our investigations are the most important work we do and have helped millions of animals.