AUDIO: Dispatch Calls from Trooper Who Arrested Cop

Animal-rights campaigners are hoping this year’s festival season in Nepal will be a little less bloody. During the 15-day Dasain festival that began this week in the Himalayan country, families fly kites, host feasts and visit temples, where tens of thousands of goats, buffaloes, chickens and ducks are sacrificed to please the gods and goddesses as part of a practice that dates back centuries. 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.