Dive lights blinding aquatic life or permanently damaging their vision

[scubadude223]

Hi,

It was recently brought to my attention that when deep research submersibles use high powered lights to inspect the animals of the deep, those animals are permanently blinded and will suffer a slow death.

I am very concerned that when a diver shines it's light on an animal that that animal is going to Loose some of all of its vision.

What at us the take on this.

 

[WarrenZ]

I would assume that most of the reef creatures you will encounter have evolved the ability to withstand some exposure to sunlight due to being scared out of their hiding holes during the day and would be more at risk of the spotlighting effect of a night diver attracting a predator to them.

But I tend to either dive with lots of light (lights small reef creatures on fire during the dive) or no lights at all.

 

[TMHeimer]

Depends on what your concern it. If looking at it from a "humanitarium" point of view it's not good to hurt or kill these animals. If from an ecological point of view probably not much to worry about considering the number of research subs in the oceans vs. the number of species that live in those depths (and probably are not overfished for practical reasons). Are we also talking about divers' lights?--I have no idea what effect these have.

 

[gcarter]

I would suggest that if recreational dive lights were an issue it would become quickly apparent at popular dive sites.

 

[divad]

Hi,

It was recently brought to my attention that when deep research submersibles use high powered lights to inspect the animals of the deep, those animals are permanently blinded and will suffer a slow death.

I am very concerned that when a diver shines it's light on an animal that that animal is going to Loose some of all of its vision.

What at us the take on this.

Well then, don't do that.... unless you just can't help it.

 

[g1138]

Reef creatures have eyes that work in relative principle to our eyes.
Speculating they'll get a spot light effect, the same you and I would if you got a spot light shined in your face.
But no harm from the distance we usually shine from.

They are adapted to living in day and night cycles, so at worse you paint them as food, at best you give them the usual stress seen in Finding Nemo.

Good Etiquette is to not put your hotspot directly on the face and eyes of your target.

For your ease of mind:
Fish in home & public aquariums get lots more UV radiation and exposure from old style halogen lights and the new style LED lights. Going blind is not an issue due to lights; blindness would be due to nutrients deficiency and disease more often for aquarium.
And most home fish aquariums don't have dimmers or gradual on. It's either dark or BAM-bright. That type of wake up causes stress, but consensus is that it does not cause blindness.

 

[seeker242]

Hi,

It was recently brought to my attention that when deep research submersibles use high powered lights to inspect the animals of the deep, those animals are permanently blinded and will suffer a slow death.

I would say the same would most likely not happen with animals that are normally exposed to sunlight naturally, AKA recreational diving depths. Deep submersibles go to depths where this is no sunlight AT ALL, ever. It's a very different environment.

 

[mikeycanuk]

What kind of lumens are the subs putting out?


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[Buoy_A]

I see a lawsuit looming off in the distance...



(Seriously...are there that many subs doing research to make any appreciable impact on the ocean? I'm all for protecting our oceans, but we need to be reasonable about our expectations.)

 

[gypsyjim]

I suppose this means that the next time you are diving to the depths of those deep submersibles, you probably should refrain from shining you dive lights in creatures eyes....