Sacrifice

Throughout the world you can see that animal kind is intrinsically linked to the ritual behaviour of the human race, as offerings or even beings that are presented with offerings themselves. 

The Vulture

Quite hard for the Western mind to comprehend is the Tibetan practice of sky burial. The souls of deceased Tibetans are believed to leave the body upon death and their corpses offered to scavengers such as vultures with cremation and burial not ideal in a land without timber but an abundance of permafrost. There are apparently around 1,075 sky burial sites and the full practice involves three preparation days of chanting and then the bodies are cut into chunks for the benefit of the vultures, who I've read are seen as 'Dakini' or 'sky dancers' that transfer the soul to the sky and if provided with human donations will avoid eating living creature as well as contributing to the 'circle of life'. 

The Bear

Both the Ainu people of Japan and the Nivkh people of Sakhalin (Russia) practice(d) a similar ceremony centred around the bear. A highly controversial ritual that was, according to online sources, revived or has continued to take place and involves the sacrifice of a young bear that is hand reared by locals. The bears are seen as gods or at least as good as and are therefore treated to superior food and presented with a banquet before it is killed, either by arrow or strangulation. An originally religious ceremony that was dedicated to the spirit of the bear returning to the mountain gods and ensuring benevolence for the clans, the bear festivals have since transferred to a cultural practice and issues of animal cruelty are brought forward.