(AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)

Butchers with butcher knives participate in religious rituals before slaughtering buffalos during a mass sacrifice ceremony at Gadhimai temple in Bariyapur, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) south of Katmandu, Nepal, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009. Hundreds of thousands of Hindus gathered at a temple in southern Nepal on Tuesday for a ceremony involving the slaughter of more than 200,000 animals, a festival that has drawn the ire of animal-welfare protesters.