The Government’s decision to maintain the same tight limit imposed last year on recreational lobster fishing is insufficient to revive the numbers of a popular catch whose population has crashed in Bermuda waters, a conservation group has said.

The permitted number of recreational lobster diving licences, which has been cut repeatedly as lobster catches started to plunge in 2016, were set last year at a new low of 175.

This week, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, which consulted fishermen as well as marine and fisheries boards, announced that the same limit would continue for the coming lobster season, which begins on September 1 and runs until the end of March.

The spiny lobster’s decline has been linked to environmental issues, including the loss of seagrass habitats vital for the crustacean’s young, and a separate population crash for sharks — which prey on turtles.

The ecological imbalance around Bermuda has led to an excess of turtles, which helped to thin out seagrass beds through overgrazing.

The Bermuda Environmental Sustainability Taskforce, which reviewed the latest round of regulations, told The Royal Gazette: “We think maintaining the same catch restrictions as last year does not go far enough to address what appears to be a very significant decline in lobster catch that speaks to an alarming degradation of our lobster fishery.

“According to DENR's 20 years of fisheries data, we are currently in an extended period of below-average catch, and over the last decade there has been a consistent decline in the average number of lobsters caught per trap, which is the metric used to determine catch sustainability.”

The environmental group pointed to a tangle of longstanding problems that were now being felt in the island’s seas.

BEST said: “The harmful effects of climate change are becoming more pronounced worldwide, upsetting the complex natural processes that are necessary for things like the ability for spiny lobsters to come to and thrive in Bermuda's waters, many of which we still do not fully understand.

“It is likely there are many climate-related factors in play that are leading to our declining lobster population, such as changing ocean currents, ocean acidification and warming seas, and these impacts are just being compounded by our diminished seagrass beds and our continued lobster fishing.”

The group said it would be “prudent” to recommend that “a full moratorium on all lobster fishing, for at least the next five years, be seriously considered to allow the fishery to recover.”

The Fishermen’s Association of Bermuda, which has clashed with the Government over plans to set aside 20 per cent of the island’s waters as protected, has repeatedly stated that fishermen were being blamed for issues caused by factors such as pollution.

However, BEST said imposing a moratorium was the best option for the recovery of lobster numbers.

The spokesman said: “Given all the other natural processes being disturbed by climate change that are out of our control, it makes sense to take action on the one area we can control.

“This continued decline is unsustainable and we must do what we can to ensure our lobster fishery survives for us and is still there for future generations of Bermudians.”