KATHMANDU, Nepal — Animal-rights campaigners are hoping this year’s festival season in Nepal will be a little less bloody. Animal rights groups are hoping to stop –or at least reduce– the slaughter, using this year’s campaign as a practice run to combat a much larger animal sacrifice set for next year at the quinquennial Gadhimai festival. Such a campaign is novel in Nepal, where four out of five people are Hindu and animal sacrifice is a deeply rooted tradition. Though there are no official data, fewer animals were believed to have been sacrificed at the subsequent Gadhimai festival in 2014, according to rights group Animal Nepal. Krishna Prasad Dhangal, a shopkeeper and devotee who was at the market to purchase animals for sacrifice, defended the practice.

Source: National Post October 12, 2018 05:44 UTC