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anyone who has ever had a pet goldfish knows that they're more aware than people give them credit for. they recognise their food containers and get visibly exci

anyone who has ever had a pet goldfish knows that they're more aware than people give them credit for. they recognise their food containers and get visibly excited when it's feeding time.

steve_adams_86 3y ago
I used to spearfish and stopped, then began recording videos of fish. The difference in their behaviour was dramatic. A genus of fish where I live called the Greenling (I’ve seen kelp, rock, and painted greenling) is very curious in my experience, which spans around 5 years of shooting them and 2 years of recording them. With the speargun out and hunting mode on, they were unfortunately still curious, but far more apprehensive. They’d leave their perches on the rocks earlier to get away or try to hide in camouflage, not moving a muscle. I’d often pick them off of their rocks when they stayed still. However, with a camera, hunting mode off, they will swim circles around me, leave their perches and move around more, rarely staying completely still. They don’t perceive me as an immediate threat, and some (especially kelp greenling) really want to get close and check me out. They will follow me up after dives, check out the sand I’m tossing up, or just reorient casually to watch me. When a greenling wants to escape, it knows its environment extremely well and it will race strategically to a spot where it doesn’t think you can access it. It doesn’t go for the nearest spot; it goes for a hidey hole that contextually makes sense. They almost never wind up under a rock where I can get them. The same goes for other fish. They go to specific deep hides they’ve already charted out, even if it means going a little further. I believe this because I hunted the same spots over and over, sometimes camped on specific spots for a week and diving for hours per day. I came to discover that certain hotspots had very particular safe zones that the fish were well aware of. If a fish took off towards certain features, I’d essentially give up the pursuit; they’d wind up way too deep in a recess to shoot or retrieve. I wasted so much time trying to find them before I figured out that they’re way better at hiding than I imagined. I don’t think it’s possible for fish to be this good at knowing their environment and how to hide without being somewhat clever. They have mental maps, they know what’s trying to get them (not necessarily a speargun specifically, but an animal that requires a deep hide to escape from), and they evaluate when and how to escape contextually. I’ve watched seals go after greenling and their strategy differs quite a bit. They will simply squeeze under a rock and wait. The seals will rub their noses into the cracks and crevasses, check stuff out, then you can swim around shortly after and the greenling are still out and about. They understood the danger and hid accordingly, then came back out once the seals left. Learning this is why I stopped shooting them. Fish aren’t just meat torpedos with special sensors in their heads. They seem sentient to me.

anyone who has ever had a pet goldfish knows that they're more aware than people give them credit for. they recognise their food containers and get visibly excited when it's feeding time.

steve_adams_86 3y ago

I used to spearfish and stopped, then began recording videos of fish. The difference in their behaviour was dramatic. A genus of fish where I live called the Greenling (I’ve seen kelp, rock, and painted greenling) is very curious in my experience, which spans around 5 years of shooting them and 2 years of recording them. With the speargun out and hunting mode on, they were unfortunately still curious, but far more apprehensive. They’d leave their perches on the rocks earlier to get away or try to hide in camouflage, not moving a muscle. I’d often pick them off of their rocks when they stayed still. However, with a camera, hunting mode off, they will swim circles around me, leave their perches and move around more, rarely staying completely still. They don’t perceive me as an immediate threat, and some (especially kelp greenling) really want to get close and check me out. They will follow me up after dives, check out the sand I’m tossing up, or just reorient casually to watch me. When a greenling wants to escape, it knows its environment extremely well and it will race strategically to a spot where it doesn’t think you can access it. It doesn’t go for the nearest spot; it goes for a hidey hole that contextually makes sense. They almost never wind up under a rock where I can get them. The same goes for other fish. They go to specific deep hides they’ve already charted out, even if it means going a little further. I believe this because I hunted the same spots over and over, sometimes camped on specific spots for a week and diving for hours per day. I came to discover that certain hotspots had very particular safe zones that the fish were well aware of. If a fish took off towards certain features, I’d essentially give up the pursuit; they’d wind up way too deep in a recess to shoot or retrieve. I wasted so much time trying to find them before I figured out that they’re way better at hiding than I imagined. I don’t think it’s possible for fish to be this good at knowing their environment and how to hide without being somewhat clever. They have mental maps, they know what’s trying to get them (not necessarily a speargun specifically, but an animal that requires a deep hide to escape from), and they evaluate when and how to escape contextually. I’ve watched seals go after greenling and their strategy differs quite a bit. They will simply squeeze under a rock and wait. The seals will rub their noses into the cracks and crevasses, check stuff out, then you can swim around shortly after and the greenling are still out and about. They understood the danger and hid accordingly, then came back out once the seals left. Learning this is why I stopped shooting them. Fish aren’t just meat torpedos with special sensors in their heads. They seem sentient to me.