GUILFORD, Conn. - A proposed three-month moratorium on commercial lobster fishing is not the way to address the dramatic decline of lobsters in Long Island Sound, lobstermen, officials and activists said Monday.

They urged the government instead to take a closer look at pesticides that some blame for the Sound-wide lobster die-off that began about 12 years ago and fully fund efforts to improve water quality by continuing to clean up Long Island Sound.

"We need to stop putting poison in the drainage system and try to clean up the Sound," said Nick Crismale, a Guilford lobsterman who is president of the Connecticut Commercial Lobstermen's Association. "The state shouldn't be asking us to reduce [our work] because they haven't done anything. If not them, then who do we hold accountable?"