Note:  It is a customary practice of competitive pigeon racers to kill lost birds they retrieve after being found and reported by concerned people.  The hapless bird may be the result of "basket culling" in the first place, which means that birds are carelessly released far from home and any who don't make it back to their family and friends (in essence, abandoned) are deemed not worthy of keeping, anyway.

A tactic to build and maintain a false public image by the competitive pigeon racing community is to assure finders that lost birds are welcome back home, even though they will actually be killed -- if not immediately, most likely in the very near future because their failure to return home proved to their owner that they are no longer worthy of being alive.

I for one would not want all my racers to return -- where  would I put them?  What would I do with them? ...

... Racers that have done nothing as a young bird or as a yearling and show no signs of being a potentially good breeder are culled. Yes. Culled [killed].  ... I haven't come across anyone wanting to keep a pigeon as a pet and I wouldn't give a cull to anyone wanting to improve their stock. ...I don't have the time, money, or energy to keep birds that have not proven themselves as racers nor showing potential in being a good breeder.

I have been breeding pigeons for over twenty-five years ... Normally I raise around fifty birds each year.  I train hard and ... some birds can't take daily training [meaning, they don't make it home and are lost in the wild to die] ... I have never had more than two or three that I have kept at the end of the year.  Everything else is culled.  Since I don't fly oldbirds [sic] if the bird does not produce in the breeding loft as a yearling then it is also culled.

Sounds harsh, but I am interested in winning. ...
. . .
To be successful in pigeons you have to treat them like a business...

For the homing pigeons culling isn't necessary because you can fly them and those that aren't good enough will be lost. If a bird comes from the races late every time and it isn't in the prizes you simply send it to a longer race and if it comes you send to a longer one and so on.

If [a person against lethal culling] were a pigeon in my loft [it] would be culled... FACT NOT FICTION.
. . .
If you race your birds and lose one what do you think happens to it? More than likely it will die a slow death of starvation or be food for some hawk. I'll be ---- if I will feed them hawks. Over their dead bodies!!

...  I once met a pigeon guy at the feed store who raced pigeons; he said if a bird of his got lost, and was returned to him by a person, he just snapped the bird's neck for being a lousy racer....

Subject: Racers 1st-White dove 2nd

In regards to the white bird release business...  I got all the white birds I could lay my hands on and flew them through the races...  What is left, are what I bred....