A team of British Army divers is in Bermuda carrying out what is thought to be the first comprehensive study of the Island's threatened grouper population.

And the scientific work could provide a tourism spin-off as a British television crew is filming the expedition for a series of news reports and a possible documentary.

The 16 divers from the part-time Territorial Army arrived on May 31 for the two week operation, which involves controlled swims past known grouper sites around the Island to try to discover how many of the fish exist.

Lieutenant Simon Durtnal, who is organising the expedition, said Bermuda's grouper population was at "crisis point".

A major problem has been that groupers change sex from female to male at about ten or 11 years old, but many are fished at this age, meaning there are few surviving males around to mate.

Lt. Durtnal's team is carrying out the work for the Bermuda Biological Station for Research.

He told The Royal Gazette he was on the Island two years ago visiting Bermuda Regiment officers he met at the army's elite training institution, Sandhurst in England.

He met an official from the Biostation who explained the research they carried out into groupers, but said the institution didn't have enough money to pay divers to do a comprehensive study.

"I said what if I could supply you with 15 or 20 divers for free and they said they could do a lot of things with that," he said. "In the UK, I was the officer in charge of recruiting and it is very difficult to get people and I thought if I could start a dive club, I could train these people and take them to Bermuda.

"I started the dive club, got the people trained, and it has been very exciting for the TA."

Groupers have been decimated by fishing. The Nassau grouper is now extinct and there have been no sightings of that fish in Bermuda in the past 10 years.

"Line fishing still exists and people are not aware of the damage it does."

At all the diving sites you might see three or four grouper, but the Biostation has no idea how many in the rest of the seas around Bermuda. "The problem with groupers is that they are all female until 10 or 11 and all the groupers past that age tend to be large and get fished first." Once the male population is decimated, breeding stops almost instantly. It's a worldwide problem and in certain areas it is extremely acute."

Lt. Durtnal said the results of the study will allow scientists to see if any policy initiatives had any effect on the grouper population. He said he hopes to return again in two years to see if there have been any changes. The divers, 12 from the TA in Bristol, Somerset, and four other experienced divers, have been living at Warwick Camp with the Bermuda Regiment. They are all British Sub-Aqua Club (BSAC) trained divers and have teamed up with the BSAC club in Bermuda. A three-strong team from the Independent Television Network in Britain is with the divers for a series of news programmes. The team is also hoping to do a documentary for the Discovery Channel. Lt. Durtnal said the team have been well looked after by the Regiment, which has provided meals and accommodation. Local dive shops have given discounts on air fills, and Bacardi is throwing a party for them before they leave.