Every five years, the world's largest animal sacrifice takes place at the Gadhimai Temple in Nepal. The month-long festival has raised controversy due to the large number of animals killed - up to 500,000 over two days. (Photo: AP)
A campaign to ban the festival has attracted support from celebrities including British actress Joanna Lumley and French movie legend Brigitte Bardot, who has petitioned Nepal's president to end the "cruel tradition". (Photo: AP)
Organizers and the authorities defend the festival held every five years as a generations-old tradition, though animal rights activists decry it as barbaric. (Photo: AP)
Organizers and the authorities defend the festival held every five years as a generations-old tradition, though animal rights activists decry it as barbaric. (Photo: AP)
A festival believed to be the largest animal sacrifice ritual in the world began Friday in southern Nepal, where devotees believe the sacrifices bring good luck and a Hindu goddess will grant their wishes. (Photo: AP)
An estimated 300,000 animals had their heads chopped off or throats slit during the last festival in 2009, making it the world's biggest sacrifice of animals at any one site. (Photo: AP)
The festival kicked off at midnight amid tight security, with the ceremonial killing of a goat, rat, chicken, pig and a pigeon. Some 1,200 police personnel were patrolling the village and the field where sacrifices were taking place to control
Animal carcasses and severed heads were piling up in a large field near the village where thousands of devotees were carrying out the sacrifices. Butchers stand by hundreds of slaughtered buffaloes during a mass sacrifice ceremony at Gadhimai temple
Sword-wielding devotees have poured into the village of Bariyapur near the Indian border which will become the world's largest abattoir during the two-day festival, with animals ranging from buffaloes to rats butchered. (Photo: AP)
Nepal's religious mass animal slaughter ignites controversy