- Animal Equality released footage from the 2024 Gadhimai Festival, exposing the slaughter of thousands of animals.
- Devotees used machetes and knives–often while untrained or intoxicated–resulting in prolonged deaths.
- Investigators documented high walls, a filming ban, and thick smog used to conceal the mass killings.
- Police enforced strict restrictions, with some investigators physically assaulted.
- Animal Equality has spent more than a decade reducing animal sacrifices at Gadhimai, where hundreds of thousands were once killed. This number has dropped dramatically in recent years.
Animal Equality has released footage from the 2024 Gadhimai Festival in Southern Nepal, where thousands of animals were slaughtered in early December. As the world’s largest animal sacrifice, this event continues every five years despite widespread international outcry.
Investigators captured the following:
- Animals slaughtered with machetes and knives by untrained or intoxicated devotees.
- Buffaloes dying slowly as dull machetes failed to deliver fatal blows.
- Animals crammed into overcrowded trucks during transport.
- Exhausted animals forced to walk for days without food or water.
- Devotees cutting the ears of goats and buffaloes, leaving them bleeding.
- Starving animals awaiting slaughter.
Buffaloes were forced to witness the slaughter of others before being targeted themselves. Many huddled together in corners, attempting to avoid the executioners. One by one, they were pulled by their tails and killed. – Amruta Ubale, Executive Director of Animal Equality in India
Footage revealed approximately 1,500 buffaloes hacked to death in the temple’s enclosure. Outside, devotees slaughtered thousands of goats in surrounding fields, while pigeons were thrown onto rooftops to be slaughtered later. Children were seen participating in the killing, hacking carcasses and skinning animals.
Previous investigations at the Gadhimai Festival revealed similar findings: calves freezing to death while awaiting slaughter, animals subjected to sexual abuse, and others hung upside down on bicycles. Beheaded animals were left scattered across the grounds, which were ankle-deep with blood.
These actions violate Nepal’s Supreme Court order against cruel treatment of animals, which remains unenforced at Gadhimai.
Origins of the Gadhimai Festival
The Gadhimai Festival traces its origins to a dream nearly 265 years ago. According to legend, a Nepalese farmer dreamt his struggles would end if he offered a blood sacrifice to the Hindu goddess Gadhimai. Acting on this, he completed the ritual using drops of his own blood.
Believing the sacrifice brought relief, the practice grew into mass animal sacrifices, with hundreds of thousands killed at each festival.
Efforts to conceal mass slaughter
In 2024, the Gadhimai temple committee imposed strict measures to hide the killings–likely responding to backlash from previous years. Filming was banned, with hundreds of police enforcing the restrictions.
High walls were erected to block views, but Animal Equality captured footage through gaps and elevated positions. Some investigators were struck by police.
Carcasses were covered with hay, preventing a headcount. Artificial smoke–likely from fog machines–mixed with campfire smoke to create thick smog. The smoke caused eye irritation, breathing issues, and visibility reduced to a few feet, grounding drone operations.
A decade of progress: saving lives at Gadhimai
For more than a decade, Animal Equality has worked to end mass animal sacrifices at Nepal’s Gadhimai Festival.
In 2014, Animal Equality successfully lobbied India’s Ministry of Home Affairs to block live animal transport across the Indo-Nepal border during the festival. At the time, 70 percent of participants brought animals from India for slaughter.
Border officials were placed on high alert, preventing hundreds of thousands of animals from being transported to their deaths.
Animal Equality also gathered thousands of online signatures directed at Nepalese officials, calling for an end to the killings. Volunteers worked with villagers and temple priests, encouraging participation in the festival without sacrificing animals.
Although Nepal’s Supreme Court ordered the government to stop the sacrifices in 2016, officials continued to allow them, citing cultural and tourism concerns. In response to backlash over graphic footage, authorities banned filming and photography. This was strictly enforced by local officials.
At its peak, the festival saw the slaughter of 500,000 animals. By 2019, the number of large animals killed was roughly 3,000.
This year, Animal Equality distributed flyers and displayed banners, emphasizing that the original Gadhimai tradition did not involve animal sacrifice. Despite limited visibility, the number of large animals killed is estimated to have halved since 2019.
Animal cruelty a global issue
The Gadhimai Festival gains attention every five years, but slaughter happens daily on factory farms worldwide.
In 2024, Animal Equality exposed abuses at a pig slaughterhouse in Italy. Pigs remained conscious after stunning and throat-slitting, breathing and crying out on the conveyor belt.
That same year, German investigators filmed workers breaking piglets’ necks by hand. One worker pushed a piglet to the floor, sat on them, and punched them. Another painted a piglet for amusement.
And in the U.S., calves were found frozen to the ground at a farm linked to Babybel. Cold exposure caused their hooves to detach from their legs.
At Gadhimai, animals are killed for tradition. On factory farms, they are slaughtered to meet demand. Both systems are hidden from public view.
The power to disrupt this is on your plate. Animal Equality’s plant-based cookbook offers recipes to make every meal an opportunity for compassion.
LIVE KINDLY
With rich emotional lives and unbreakable family bonds, farmed animals deserve to be protected.
You can build a kinder world by replacing animal food products with plant‑based ones.
