Using red light for in situ observations of deep-sea fishes

Observations of animals in the deep ocean typically require the use of bright lights that can damage eyes and disrupt normal behaviors. Although the use of infrared light is an effective means of unobtrusive observation on land, it is far less effective in the ocean where long wavelength light is rapidly attenuated by seawater. Here we describe in situ observations of the behavior of the sablefish, Anoplopoma fimbria, around a baited site under different lighting conditions. Fish were observed with low-light-level imaging that had adequate sensitivity to compensate for the attenuation losses associated with the use of long wavelength light in water. ROV-based experiments compared the number of sablefish seen around bait, illuminated alternately with red vs. white light. Significantly more fish were seen under red light than white light with the average number of sablefish observed per 10 min viewing interval under red light being 38.9 (±18.5 SD) compared to 7.5 (±7.1 SD) under white light. Under both red and white light sablefish spent only brief periods in the illumination field (10.5 s [±8.7 SD] under red light and 6.6 s [±8.7 SD] under white light). It appeared that sablefish were responding to competing drives of attraction to the bait and avoidance of the lights and that the avoidance was greater for white light than for red light. Observations were also made with the newly developed deep-sea observatory, Eye-in-the-Sea, using long wavelength LED illumination. The onset of LED illumination did not generally produce a startle response from fish around the bait, and in some cases invoked no response at all. However, in the majority of cases the fish moved out of the circle of red-light illumination during the 7.5 s recording period, indicating that the light was detectable and aversive to these fish. This was true with both 660 and 680 nm LED illuminators. We conclude that while a sharper short-wavelength cutoff of the illumination source is required to achieve truly unobtrusive observation, red light is nonetheless significantly less disruptive than white light for observing deep-sea fish behavior, and can provide adequate illumination when used in combination with image-intensified cameras.