On Tuesday, February 11, 2014, Robyn du Pre of the Northwest Straits Foundation came to Orcas to talk about how the local effort to remove lost fishing nets and crabbing gear has strengthened our local economy and helped recover marine wildlife populations.

Over the last decade, the Northwest Straits Initiative has removed 4,605 nets from shallow waters in the Salish Sea, saving the lives of more than 3.5 million marine animals that would have otherwise been entrapped and killed by these nets each year.

And guess what, it's cost-effective. A joint Northwest Straits - SeaDoc Society study revealed that while removing a net cost $1,358, every net removed saves $1,965 each year in Dungeness crab alone, not to mention the salmon, lingcod, birds, and mammals that would have been killed by that net.