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The festival is celebrated every 5 years at the Gadhimai Temple of Bariyarpur, in Bara District, Nepal. A huge part of the festival is the sacrifice of thousands (Yes as much as 200,000) animals like water buffaloes, pigs, goats, chickens, and pigeons. Not anymore.

In a victory for animal rights activists, Nepalese temple authorities said on Tuesday they would end a centuries-old Hindu tradition of mass animal slaughter during Gadhimai festival that attracts hundreds of thousands of worshippers.

The festival, held once every five years, sees hordes of devotees from Nepal and India flock to a temple in the Himalayan nation's southern plains to sacrifice thousands of animals in the hope of appeasing the Hindu goddess of power, Gadhimai.

"We have decided to completely stop the practice of animal sacrifice," said Motilal Prasad, secretary of the Gadhimai Temple Trust, which organises the celebrations.

"I realised that animals are so much like us -- they have the same organs as us... and feel the same pain we do," Prasad told AFP

http://www.hindustantimes.com/world...pal-s-gadhimai-festival/article1-1374025.aspx

This's the thread about the last festival in 2009