In effort to expand American fish farming, New Hampshire marine biologist joins congressional push

Mike Coogan has been doing aquaculture, or fish farming, formally for over a decade. Informally — through at-home hobby fish tanks and aquariums — he’s been doing it much longer.

Now, he’s joined a legislative effort to streamline the regulatory process for aquaculture to help create a U.S. industry.

Coogan is a researcher at the University of New Hampshire, where he works on the school’s AquaFort, a pilot project where researchers are growing steelhead trout in the mouth of the Piscataqua River near New Castle.