Shambo (c. 2001 – 26 July 2007) was a black Friesian bull living in the interfaith Skanda Vale Temple near Llanpumsaint in Wales who had been adopted by the local Hindu community as a sacred animal. He came to public attention in April 2007, when a routine skin test for bovine tuberculosis (Mycobacterium bovis) tested positive, indicating he may have been in contact with the bacterium that causes the disease. As a result, the Welsh Government required that the bull be slaughtered. Skanda Vale disputed this and campaigned for a reprieve, expressing their belief that the sanctity of all life is the cornerstone of Hinduism. They were backed in this stance by the Hindu religious community at large. Farmers supported the Welsh Government's policy that cattle which tested positive to the skin test be destroyed in the interests of other local cattle.
On 15 July 2007, Deputy High Court judge Gary Hickinbottom ruled that slaughtering Shambo would be unlawful, since the two slaughter orders had failed to give enough weight to the rights of the monks, and that killing Shambo would violate the human rights of the Skanda Vale community, which had a right to "manifest" its religious faith, according to Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights ("right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion"). A spokesman for the Farmers' Union of Wales called the ruling "ludicrous", arguing that it "contradicts the principles upon which successful TB eradication programmes throughout the world have been based for generations." On 23 July 2007, the Court of Appeal upheld the Welsh Assembly Government's appeal. Lord Justice Pill said former rural affairs minister Jane Davidson acted lawfully when she refused to make an exception for Shambo as a sacred bull. A postmortem subsequently revealed that Shambo had lesions 'typical of TB'.
Campaign to save Shambo
The Hindu community launched an international campaign to save him, arguing that to kill Shambo would be equivalent to taking a human life. Temple monks said they would form a human chain to save him, asking on their website: "If a member of your family is suspected of getting TB, does the government kill them, just in case?" They collected over 24,000 names on a petition asking the government to issue a reprieve.
Sanctity of life in Hindu tradition
According to Skanda Vale, the sanctity of all life is the cornerstone of Hinduism. Ramesh Kallidai, secretary-general of the Hindu Forum of Britain, wrote that the cow and bull are given a sacred place in Hindu culture as a mark of respect. The cow symbolizes motherhood through the offering of milk, and the bull represents the father who tills the soil and provides grain. Kallidai writes that most Hindus consider bovicide to be equivalent to matricide, and that go raksha (cow protection) is an important part of the Hindu faith. According to Mahatma Gandhi, "One can measure the greatness of a nation and its moral progress by the way it treats its animals. Cow protection to me is not mere protection of the cow. It means protection of all that lives and is helpless and weak in the world. The cow means the entire subhuman world."
Controversy about the test and treatment
Shambo tested positive during a routine skin test in April 2007. According to Skanda Vale, tests on Shambo were not accurate enough — they said it was "extremely unlikely" that Shambo was infected. David Taylor, a vet who examined Shambo, said, "he is a very healthy bull, with no symptoms of TB. It would be an absolute crime to put that animal down." He also argued that the tests were completely subjective. The Welsh Assembly refused to carry out a second test to confirm exposure to bacteria.
According to a report by the Welsh Assembly, whether an animal is suffering from TB can only be shown by post-mortem examination or by microbiological analysis after death, but they say the test for exposure to the bacteria that cause the disease is 99.9% accurate and is recognized by the European Union and by the World Organisation for Animal Health.
Against this, Skanda Vale argued that, if Shambo had bovine TB, he could be treated using antibiotics. The temple asked the government to grant permission for the treatment to proceed. The Welsh Assembly argued that, since there are no antibiotics licensed in the UK for treating bovine TB in cattle, there would be no way of testing whether he had been cured. However, Skanda Vale argues that cows are successfully treated for bovine TB in India.