I’ve witnessed the world’s largest animal sacrifice.

At Nepal’s Gadhimai Festival, tens of thousands of animals are killed every five years in the name of tradition.

Buffaloes are hacked to death with machetes. Goats are decapitated. Tears run down animals’ faces as they wait their turns to die. 

The ground runs red. Severed heads still blink. Bodies are scattered as far as the eye can see.

Since 2014, I’ve crossed from India—where most of these animals are taken from—into Nepal. 

That first year, Animal Equality had just helped ban animal transport across the border. 

My team was stationed at checkpoints to assist law enforcement and stop smugglers.

Not everyone welcomed us.

Outside a border patrol office in a region known for unrest, a crowd closed in around me. 

Dozens pressed in as tension rose, insisting sacrifice was their “tradition.” One wrong move, and the crowd could have erupted.

I told one man I’d only speak if the others stepped back. He agreed, the crowd parted, and I slipped away.

That same year, police trailed my team from checkpoint to checkpoint. 

After the festival ended, we found out why. 

They had feared for our safety and had been ordered to protect us.

While some officers guarded us, others turned hostile. 

At one checkpoint, an official sexually assaulted me as I leaned into a vehicle to check for smuggled animals. 

I spun around and demanded–before the crowd–that he stay away from me. 

I stood tall, gathered myself, and kept pressing onward.

Every festival since, the attempts to silence us have grown. Higher walls around the buffalo enclosure. Smoke released to blind our cameras. Officials beating our team.

After each attempt at censorship, we became more determined. And it worked. 

Since 2014, thousands fewer animals have been killed each year.

But this censorship is bigger than Gadhimai.

It also shields factory farms, where animals die in even larger numbers. 

My colleagues have uncovered:

• Piglets’ skulls crushed with hammers in the U.K.
• Calves torn from their mothers and left to starve in Italy.
• Male chicks shredded alive in California.
• Lambs’ heads ripped off in Mexico.
• Ducks force-fed for foie gras in France.
• Cows dismembered alive in Brazil.

This cruelty is global, and censorship keeps consumers in the dark. 

That’s why we need you. 

WILL YOU STEP UP FOR HER?

Her mother’s life was spent in a cage. She will suffer the same fate. But you can change this for millions of animals, currently trapped in factory farms.

Your support makes our investigations, campaigns, and legal work possible .

Only $25/month impacts 1,300 animals in a year.

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As a monthly supporter, you could power investigations, push for laws that save lives, pressure corporations to act, and fund plant-based education.

All of it challenges the same excuse used to defend cruelty. 

At Gadhimai, it’s called “tradition.” In factory farms, it’s the idea that meat, dairy, and eggs are sacred parts of culture. 

But traditions have always evolved. We can keep what matters while leaving cruelty behind.

That’s why my colleagues created these classic American recipes for you, made entirely cruelty-free. 

Compassion unites us across every border.

From Nepal to the U.S., let’s be the voices they can’t silence.

Amruta Ubale

Executive Director of Animal Equality India