PETA about to achieve the impossible, make Tyson a sympathetic character

If it involves animals and PETA can draw attention to itself, the "pro animal" organization is johnny-on-the-spot.

The latest PETA target is Mike Tyson. Yes, that Mike Tyson. The former boxing world champion and bird lover just debuted a new show on Animal Planet. 

The series "Taking On Tyson" follows his journey with breeding, raising the animals to explore the world of Pigeon racing for the first time.

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has gone after Tyson on two fronts.

Last year, the organization asked New York prosecutors to investigate Tyson and his Brooklyn apartment building. FOX 5 in Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Review-Journal report that Monday PETA began protesting near Tyson's home in Henderson, Nev.

"If Mike Tyson truly loved birds, he would fight for their protection -- not force them into a 'race' that tears them away from their families and subjects them to injuries, exhaustion and death," PETA Vice President Lisa Lange said in a statement.

The Review-Journal said 20 people stood outside Tyson's gated community in the Seven Hills section of Henderson with signs.

Nephi Oliva, runs Nevada Pigeon Control, showed up to take up the other side in the debate.

"While Tyson's show and pigeon racing is not ideal, it does show them in a more human and friendly manner," he said.

Racing pigeons can be valuable, as much as $1,000 each, and their owners take good care of them, Oliva said. In fact, many local racers give their retired birds to his pigeon sanctuary instead of killing them, he said.

"They're well cared for. That's why they can fly 500 miles," Oliva said.

PETA claims Tyson's love of pigeons is misguided:

Tyson's claim to care about pigeons is rather incredulous given that he chooses to tout using them in a "sport" that—like horseracing—exposes them to danger and death. In a typical race, the birds are taken great distances—sometimes as many as 500 miles—away from their homes and then released to see if they can find their way back.

It can only be a traumatic experience, as evidenced by the fallen pigeons who succumb to storms, shotgun pellets, and collisions with high-tension wires and who are often found starving, exhausted, and a long way from home. Pigeons mate for life, and the likelihood that both partners will find each other again or that the bird who is released will be reunited with the one left in the coop is a crapshoot.

For those banded birds who are found by concerned citizens or turned in to humane societies and have their bands traced, the voice on the other end of the phone is likely to say what we have been told directly, i.e., "Wring their necks, that's what we do with losers."

Ashley Olsen Danneel Harris Veronika Vaeková Eve Brittany Lee