Shock twist may save Joe the racing pigeon from death row

There’s been a twist in the curious tale of a racing pigeon on death row after apparently flying 13,000 kilometres across the Pacific Ocean from the US to Australia.

The pigeon turned up in Kevin Celli-Bird’s backyard in outer-suburban Melbourne on Boxing Day, exhausted and weak.

Experts initially traced it to one that disappeared from a race in the US state of Oregon on October 29. They thought the pigeon – which Mr Celli-Bird named Joe after the US President-elect – had hitched a…