Buffalo fight festival to hide slaughter of winners

Organisers of buffalo fighting festivals are determined the traditional contest will continue, despite opposition from animal rights groups and members of the public, but agreed that the slaughter of winning beasts would be conducted away from spectators.

Two buffalo in a fight

Buffalo fighting is a unique and traditional festival in Vietnam, especially in Do Son District, Haiphong City, and involved pitting selected animals against each other in numerous fights until a winner emerges.

The winning buffalo is then slaughtered and offered to the Water Goddess, though the meat is sold at high prices.

A Buffalo Fighting Festival in Hanoi’s Phuc Tho District stirred up concerns last year about the brutality of the slaughter.

Luu Quang Dinh, editor-in-chief of Nong Thon Ngay Nay Newspaper, one of the organisers of the event, said the event would continue despite opposition and would be taken to other localities, but killing the buffalo was not a policy of the organisers.

“Winning buffalo were all killed and offered to the goddess in the old times,” Dinh said. “Nowadays, people still kill winning buffalo in many fighting festivals in Do Son, Hai Luu and Ham Yen districts.

“The buffalo are not raised to plough the fields but for their meat, and do not belong to the organisers, but to their owners, and the owners will kill them, maybe elsewhere, to sell the meat anyway.”

The beasts will now be slaughtered away from the public.

This year’s Buffalo Fighting Festival will be held on March 2 and 3 in Suoi Hoa Stadium in Bac Ninh City, with the participation of 24 buffalo from across the country.

There has a been a growing groundswell of opinion against brutal festivals involving the slaughter of animals.

The Animals Asia Foundation launched a campaign to stop Bac Ninh Province’s traditional pig slaughter during the Nem Thuong Festival, during which pigs are decapitated in public and bystanders dip money into the blood in hope of good luck.

The local Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism proposed to change the name from “Pig Slaughter Ceremony” to “Pig Procession Ceremony”, urged the event not be publicised, and that it be moved elsewhere.

Many villagers opposed the changes, saying the name and the location are sacred.

“It’s sacred that the pig is killed in the yard of the village’s temple, or else the festival will lose its meaning,” said Tran Van Duc, head of Nem Thuong Village.

He said that due to negative feedback over the past two years, the butcher would only cut the throats of the pigs, rather than decapitate them.

Duc said the village will go on with the ceremony as usual.

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