An Italian animal rights group on Monday condemned a Sicilian village for its gory annual tradition of stringing up a slaughtered goose by its feet in the central square.
Sicily's branch of LAV said tourists and dozens of children in the town of Butera watched the ''barbaric and blood-curdling game'' on Friday as the goose's body was strung up still bleeding for the festival of St Rocco.
The annual festival, which takes place on August 15, celebrates a town tradition about a serpent that once terrorised the region but was eventually captured and killed by local men using a goose as bait.
In the reenactment, a man dressed as a snake on a wooden podium tries to grab at the body of the goose that hangs on the rope above him.
Another man pulls on the rope from a terrace overlooking the square to yank the goose out of the serpent's reach.
''Publicly displaying a bleeding goose with its throat slit and considering the killing of an animal a festive occasion is unacceptable for an evolved and civilised society of the third millennium,'' said LAV Sicily head Marcella Porpora.
''It risks provoking copycat behaviour, especially among the young, distancing them from respect for the life of all creatures - something that is too often neglected,'' she added.
LAV said it planned to start legal proceedings to prevent the festival from taking place again and urged the mayor of Butera to respect national laws that forbid public shows involving the mistreatment or torture of animals.
The animal rights group has published photos of the festival on its website, www.lavsicilia.it.
