The Northwest Straits Foundation received a $20,375 grant from ConocoPhillips to remove derelict fishing nets that entangle marine animals, birds and other marine life.

The company’s grant will be matched by grants from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other groups. As a result, the foundation will have the money to remove an estimated 45 acres of abandoned nets in San Juan County. The foundation is based at the Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Bay View.

“We are excited about the opportunity to improve our local marine environment and protect wildlife here in northwest Washington,” said Jeff Callender, regional public affairs director for ConocoPhillips in a prepared statement.

The priority will be placed on removing nets from 73 sites in the Washington Maritime National Wildlife Refuge Complex in the San Juans. The complex is an important bird refuge, said Ginny Broadhurst, straits foundation secretary, in a prepared statement.

Within the complex is Protection Island National Wildlife Refuge, one of the last tufted puffin breeding sites in Puget Sound.

A 2007 study by the Straits Foundation indicates that over 15 years a derelict gillnet can catch and kill 1,260 seabirds, 2,340 fish and 16,500 invertebrates, such as crabs. The abandoned or lost nets can pose a safety threat to recreational divers, according to the straits foundation.

Since 2002, the straits initiative has removed 900 nets from Puget Sound. Most of the plastic monofilament gillnets were lost between 1960 and 1995, during the fishing heyday in the Sound. An estimated 4,000 nets remain. For more information, visit http://www.nwstraits.org.