The End of Shambo

July 26, 2007 - Today was the day that a black bull named Shambo was slaughtered after a long legal battle to save him.

Shambo had been adopted by the Hindu community in the Welsh village of Llanpumsaint. As a powerful symbol of the sanctity of all life, Shambo led a charmed life in the local temple.

Things took a terrible turn when the animal tested positive for the bacterium associated with bovine tuberculosis. The United Kingdom's Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs insisted that Shambo would have to be destroyed.

Thus began a contentious battle between the goverment officials and the the Hindu leaders of the temple who were adamantly opposed to the killing of their sacred bull. The bull won a temporary reprieve when one judge ruled that the goverment had failed to consider the implications of their actions, as required by the European Court of Human Rights, but that ruling was overturned on appeal.

Eventually the officials were granted the legal right to slaughter Shambo, but the leaders of the temple refused to allow access to the bull.

They will have to physically desecrate a temple to get him ... we will be having an act of worship in front of where he is. If the Welsh Assembly Government want to take him out of there, they will have to interrupt an act of worship. Our religious laws prevent us from assisting in the killing of any life and so we will not help the inspectors remove Shambo. - Hindu Monk

Protestors arrived from around the world and stood in defiance of the goverment officials trying to reach Shambo. Meanwhile, an angry group of Welsh farmers who had already lost hundreds of cows to TB argued that no exception should be made and that Shambo had to die.

Eventually riot police were called in. Bolt cutters broke through the locks to Shambo's sanctuary and the bull was taken away to be slaughtered.

Post mortem analysis confirmed that Shambo was indeed infected with the feared disease.