[Rajiv]

Thank you khushboo for bringing this topic and RAAZ for pictures. Well, I am also a strong opposer of animal "sacrifice". Contrary to DD, I am not worried about ecosystem and food chain and all those factors yet, but my concern is about Method and Place of Slaughter and its Relation to Hinduism.
You do not need to watch the act of slaughtering, just look at the first picture above: There is a man with a butcher's knife, who seems to be more intelligent and powerful than the poor goat, which is half cut at the neck and its head hold upside showing blood spouting out probably to shower figures of gods and probably for some entertainment. It looks so inhumane. The sacrifice is not killed at one blow, but left behind to suffer pain for the sin it has never committed, and that happens in front of god, biggest court for theists.
I have no approach to religious (sanatan) information here but I am very curious to know whether there is a written statement in holy books that verifies that god wants sacrifices of sinner in form of helpless animals.
These animals have anyway no better future but they deserve at least ethical treatment and painless death, which is, to much extent, feasible. Notably at the time of dashain, when most of flesh-freaks are sharpening their canine, a gas chamber would be a great move towards animal rights. They were then insensible to pain and it all wouldn't look so merciless. You would not need to change your lifestyle, you remain a confirmed Non-Veg and you could again show you are a human and you do things that are humane.