Man makes chilling discovery after dropping salmon fillets into the ocean

A man who decided to conduct an experiment by placing wild-caught salmon at the bottom of the ocean has left viewers feeling uneasy.

In the video posted by the YouTube channel Ace Underwater - which has over 661,000 views - the content creator cut the salmon fillet in half and then pierced the pieces with metal sticks and dropped it into the sandy seafloor.

There were plenty of GoPros focused on the fillet ready to capture how the animals in this environment would react and interestingly it didn't really garner much attention initially from other fish (except a curious puffer fish who poked at it).

So the man decided to go back and break up the salmon fillet into smaller pieces and that's when more fish became intrigued.

This is something the YouTuber has seen before, as he explained that he knows from past experiments that fish prefer their food to be divided into smaller pieces.

Yes, you read correctly, the fish wanted to eat the salmon.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

However, it wasn't until the man went back to smash up the salmon with a pipe that the fish started to nibble on the fillet in what can be described as a fish-eat-fish world.

The reason why the fish were more interested in the mashed-up fish is that breaking it down causes the oils in the fillet to be released, something which fish can smell.

Damsel fish kicked things off first and were then joined by red goatfish, bottom feeders and sergeant fish who wanted to snack on the food.

(Left) The salmon fillet left on the seafloor and (right) the Amore eel that came along to investigateYouTube/Ace Underwater

As the salmon continued to be broken up, an Amore eel who was unwilling to share got a whiff as despite its lack of vision was able to locate the fillet and gobble up the whole thing.

In the comments sections, viewers shared their thoughts on the video and some were shocked at the fish eating the fillet.

One person wrote: "The fish are eating fish".

Another asked: "Isn’t that sorta like cannibalism for the fish?" while someone else said: "They probably thought it was attached to a hook and line and didn't want to get caught," referring to the fishes initial hesitancy.

"So fish eat fish…hmm…" a fourth person commented.

Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.