Somewhere on the seafloor of an oceanic canyon near Vancouver Island in 2022, scientists dropped a bundle of video and audio recording gear and a carousel loaded with 24 bottles. Each bottle contained a hefty sardine bathed in vegetable oil, and the carousel was programmed to release one sardine every two weeks to attract the deep-sea fish skulking in the area. The muddy bottom served as stomping grounds for sleek sablefish, noodly eelpouts and hagfish, and flabby snailfish, all of whom roam in nearly absolute darkness, aside from glimmers of bioluminescence.
At more than 2,000 feet deep, the observatory is one of many deep-sea observatories set up by Ocean Networks Canada, all capturing real-time data of creatures living in the area. The researchers wanted to learn if the fish in the canyon behaved differently around bait in the presence of artificial lights. "Some are attracted, and some avoid it," Héloïse Frouin-Mouy, a marine biologist and bio-acoustician specializing in marine mammals at the University of Miami, wrote in an email. The observatory had both video and acoustic cameras to monitor the behavior of fish with the lights on and off.
