Damaged netting meant to curb ocean pollution is trapping dying birds while giving live ones more room to breed — boosting bacteria in the surf.
Birds of a feather die together — under the Santa Monica Pier!
A UCLA grad student told City Council this week that the Pier’s anti-pigeon netting has become a feathered house of horrors: torn, riddled with holes, and allegedly turning Santa Monica’s most visible landmark into an avian graveyard.
Sierra Glassman, who studies urban birds, said she has counted at least 20 dead pigeons hanging in the netting under the Pier — trapped above the surf, slowly starving or dehydrating as beachgoers stroll overhead in search of funnel cake.
“It’s very gross and very upsetting,” she said, describing birds entangled in a slow-motion death trap. “They can hang there for hours or days, starving and dehydrating to death. It’s not a good way to go.”
And if the macabre ceiling display weren’t enough, Glassman said the damaged net is doing the exact opposite of its intended job.
Instead of keeping pigeons from nesting under the Pier, the holes are giving the birds more real estate — with many reportedly setting up housekeeping directly on top of the net. More nests, more pigeons, more droppings. And, critics say, more bacteria washing toward the shore.
“Because there are holes in this net…it’s actually expanding the surface area on which the pigeons can breed,” Glassman explained.
The netting has been controversial since it was first installed in 2009. At the time, City Hall paid a company called Bird Busters $107,758 to run netting the length and width of the Pier in an effort to reduce pigeon roosting and bacteria in Santa Monica Bay. Animal-rights activists warned then that the net could trap pigeons or leave them struggling to return to familiar nests — concerns that Glassman says have now become impossible to ignore.
“Bird Busters is an exterminating company, they are not rescuers,” Melya Kaplan, founder of the Santa Monica-based Voice for the Animals Foundation, told the Daily Press. “Exterminating companies are not going to be careful about baby birds.”
The netting was replaced in 2023, but troubles have continued. City officials continue to note that pigeon droppings have been linked to elevated bacteria levels south of the Pier, and feeding birds there is now banned.
Heal the Bay has said the current netting has fallen into disrepair, and researchers last year released harmless pink dye into the water near the Pier to track how currents move pollution around the breakwater.
Glassman said there has been talk of removing the net — but with no timeline or confirmation.
Her remedy: tear it down –– and fast.
“It cruelly kills pigeons and increases the area where they can breed, which in turn increases water pollution,” she said. “It’s not the best impression.”
- Why are so many dead pigeons hanging under the Santa Monica Pier? - October 15, 2026
- Family of slain Cheyenne Zampino sues Santa Monica treatment center - October 14, 2026
- The tortured, true story of Tar & Roses - October 12, 2026