If you happen to find a few sad-looking, undersized lobsters snared in underwater traps -- please leave them alone.

The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries yesterday made a public appeal for concerned citizens not to interfere with a number of experimental traps for guinea chick lobsters.

Guinea chicks are a smaller species than the more well-known spiny lobster and have an average carapace length of only 65 millimetres.

And the traps are set in shallow waters because -- unlike their cousins -- guinea chicks are nocturnal.

"Some members of the public -- probably recreational divers -- who see the traps assume they have been set illegally and have interfered with them, freeing the lobsters by cutting the trap door off them in a small number of cases,'' said a Government spokesman.

"The Fisheries Division, while it appreciates the protective instinct which is undoubtedly at work, would like to ask members of the public, the diving fraternity in particular, not to take the law in their own hands in this fashion,'' he continued.

Instead, anyone discovering unusual fishing gear or suspicious marine activity is asked to contact the Fisheries Office at 293-1785.

All government approved traps are clearly marked with a orange and black surface buoys.

At present only four fishermen are involved in the project and have begun a limited supply for the Island market.

However, the Department eventually hopes to establish a local commercial guinea chick fishery after the experiment's conclusion in the year 2000.

GOVERNMENT GVT