Every five years, hundreds of thousands of animals are rounded up and marched to their deaths in Bariyarpur, Nepal, the site of the temple of the Hindu goddess Gadhimai. This violent slaughter takes place for superstitious reasons, despite a ban announced in 2015 by temple authorities and direction from the Supreme Court of Nepal to eliminate this practice. The Gadhimai festival is infamous for being the world's largest animal sacrifice bloodbath.
Caring people are unable to comprehend why, in 2019, thousands of animals are still being decapitated and hacked apart in this festival. Today, archaic rituals like human sacrifice aren't tolerated – and animals are living, thinking, feeling beings who experience fear and pain, just as humans do.
