https://secure.peta.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=4095
PETA's investigators found that in many races, which are as long as 600 miles, more than 60 percent of the birds get lost or die as a result of extreme weather, predators, hunters, electrical lines, or exhaustion. Races that are particularly fatal—in which only a minuscule percentage of birds makes it home—are referred to as "smash races." In one such race in Queens, New York, only four out of 213 birds returned