Animal sacrifices are surging in Queens, with chickens, pigs and rats being tortured, mutilated or killed in “twisted” religious rituals in parkland surrounding Jamaica Bay, The Post has learned.
In a little over a month, at least nine wounded animals or carcasses have been discovered in the federally-managed Spring Creek Park in Howard Beach and the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Broad Channel — including five live pigs with partially severed ears.
Creatures recovered from the revolting scene also include a near-dead baby rat tied up in a bag with chicken bones; a freshly-decapitated chicken head; a live hen in distress; and a dead dog with its neck snapped.
“It’s continually getting worse. The animal sacrifices are happening more repeatedly, more times a week,” Sloane Quealy, co-founder and president of Zion’s Mission Animal Rescue, told The Post.
“The sacrificers know it’s open season.”
One of the distressed pigs was found emaciated in a food-filled crate in July, with a deep gash running down its face and its body covered in oils and spices, said Kristen Latuga, who has taken in all five of the ailing swine at her Long Island animal sanctuary, Brucie’s Angels.
Several rescuers and a local religious leader suggested the torture was linked to a sect of Hindu devotees who worship the goddess Kali and have practiced animal sacrifice in the area surrounding Jamaica Bay for decades.
“It’s a misconstruing of what the scriptures say about conquering the animalistic values,” said Acharya Arun Gossai, who runs the Bhuvaneshwar Mandir temple in Ozone Park.
“They’ve twisted it and they’ve sacrificed an actual animal rather than sacrificing the animalistic qualities of man.”
Jamaica Bay has been a popular religious site among members of the Hindu Guyanese and Indo-Caribbean diaspora living in nearby neighborhoods, including Richmond Hill and Ozone Park.
Along the waterway, which has been nicknamed the “Ganges” by some, after the sacred body of water in India, people regularly gather to give offerings, typically flowers and fruits, and leave statues of deities as well as prayer flags.
This week, The Post observed Quealy and another animal rescuer, Kim Fraser, track down a trio of piglets that had their ears and tails cut off — roughly 100 feet away from a pair of statuettes of Hindu deities resting atop a mound of turf alongside a trio of flags.
Prayer flags were spotted nearby bundled up in the brush.
Followers of other religions whose rituals involve animal sacrifice, such as Santeria and voodoo, also have been known to use beaches and parks surrounding Jamaica Bay to carry out bloody rites.
