SEATTLE -- A cleanup effort is under way to get rid of forgotten dangers lurking deep in the mud of the Puget Sound.

Lost or abandoned crab pots and fishing nets continue to catch and kill sea life and, at times, even tangle up divers.

But at least one group has not forgotten about these deepwater dangers. Northwest Straits Initiative fishes for abandoned and forgotten crab pots that have not stopped fishing.

On Wednesday divers found a pot full of crabs.

"Mostly alive. Yeah, they're all alive," said Kyle Antonelis with the marine conservation group.

But it's a slow death behind the bars of the crab pot. Trapped crabs rot, are cannibalized or are eaten by other sea life like the star fish.

Since 2002, divers have pulled 20,000 dead fish, birds and even seals from abandoned nets and traps.

Just a few months ago, a scuba diver got snagged by a ghost net in the San Juans.

Many pots use a legal rot cord that eventually creates an escape for crabs. But the one divers found on Wednesday did not.

"This was definitely done illegally. So yeah, it's maddening. There's regulation for a reason. This is an important resource," said Antonelis.

 By the week's end, the crew hopes to have 166 crab pots off the ocean floor. The group says that number makes up about 1 percent of the forgotten traps in the Puget Sound.

 Traps with ID tags are returned to owners. There is no penalty. The group wants to remove all abandoned traps in Puget Sound by 2012.