Seacoast Science Center

This episode of Get Aquacultured! spotlights the Seacoast Science Center’s high school Marine Science Fellowship, showcasing how it inspires the next generation of marine scientists and aquaculture innovators. Industry experts, educators, and students discuss the importance of aquaculture, address common misconceptions, and explore opportunities for further learning and involvement. Discover the future of aquaculture through the voices of those shaping it.

 

In This Episode:

Guest Speakers: Seacoast Science Center’s Marine Science Fellows

 

Host: Mike Doherty, Research Project Manager, University of New Hampshire's School of Marine Science and Ocean Engineering, Center for Sustainable Seafood Systems

 

Co-Host: Gabby Bradt,Ph.D. Fisheries and Aquaculture Extension State Specialist, New Hampshire Sea Grant/UNH Cooperative Extension, University of New Hampshire

 

Co-Host: Mike Coogan, Ph.D. Research Assistant Professor, Center for Sustainable Seafood Systems, University of New Hampshire 

 

Show Notes

 

Key Takeaways:

• Explore career paths in marine science through hands-on experiences.
• Understand the crucial role of aquaculture in sustainable seafood production.
• Address misconceptions about aquaculture and its environmental impact.
• Identify opportunities for high school and undergraduate involvement in marine science and aquaculture.
• Recognize the importance of education in protecting Earth’s natural resources.

 

Resources Mentioned:

• New Hampshire Sea Grant
• UNH Cooperative Extension
• Seacoast Science Center
• Seacoast Science Center’s Marine Science Fellowship
• AquaFort
• Hidden Coast Shellfish
• University of New Hampshire Coastal Marine Lab
• Sea Grant Aquaculture Academy
• Carteret Community College-Aquaculture Technology Program
• UNH Marine Docents
• NH Sea Grant Doyle Fellowship
• EE Blue Aquaculture Literacy Grant
• NOAA
• North American Association for Environmental Education

 

Connect With Us:

 

• Michael Doherty (University of New Hampshire)
• Gabby Bradt (New Hampshire Sea Grant/UNH Cooperative Extension
• Mike Coogan (University of New Hampshire)
• Richie Harty (Seacoast Science Center)

 

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Featured Quotes:

• Jodwin: “I came to this program to explore the fields and what I wanted to be. I’m still looking because I’m not set on what I want to be when I grow up.”
• Joe: “The point of the program is really to get high schoolers involved and get them prepared for the next steps… The more they put in, the more they put out.”
• Jodwin: “I think our generation is living in a world affected by industrial growth and they know what is happening to Earth. And with this knowledge, I believe that they’re able to make the change.”

 

Behind the Story:

The Marine Science Fellowship at the Seacoast Science Center isn’t just an educational program; it’s a launchpad for future marine scientists and aquaculture innovators. By providing hands-on experiences and fostering connections with industry experts, the program empowers students to explore their passions and address critical issues facing our oceans. From research projects on nudibranchs and harbor seal mortality to discussions on sustainable seafood and the ethics of caviar production, these students are actively engaged in shaping a more sustainable future.

 

Take Action:

Explore volunteer opportunities at the Seacoast Science Center or contact New Hampshire Sea Grant to learn more about aquaculture initiatives in your area.

 

Share This Episode:

Inspire the next generation of ocean stewards! Listen to the latest episode of Get Aquacultured!  on the Seacoast Science Center’s Marine Science Fellowship #aquaculture #marinescience #education

 

Creators and Guests

Host

Gabriela Bradt, Ph.D., Zoology/Animal Biology

Host

Michael Chambers, Ph.D., Zoology/Animal Biology

Michael has been advancing open ocean farming technologies for over 30 years in the US and Abroad. In the US, he has managed submerged cage culture projects in the Gulf of Mexico, Hawaii and the North Atlantic.

Host

Michael Coogan, Ph.D., Aquaculture

My research focuses on using modern technologies to overcome challenges to aquaculture expansion in the United States. Current projects include improving sustainability through extractive species co-culture (IMTA), streamlining environmental monitoring and permitting, reducing threats to whales, and creating more efficient production through genetics and culture methods. I am passionate about producing food locally and protecting the natural environment through community engagement and robust science.

Guest

Seacoast Science Center Marine Science Fellows

What is Get Aquacultured!?

Get Aquacultured! is a new limited-series podcast from University of New Hampshire The Center for Sustainable Seafood Systems that dives into the many sides of aquaculture—straight from the people who know it best. Hosts Gabriela Bradt, Michael Coogan, Michael Chambers, and Michael Doherty share a lively conversation with industry experts, practitioners, students, and educators working in aquaculture. Together, they’ll bust myths, spotlight different perspectives, and bring the fascinating world of aquaculture to life. From science and innovation to classrooms and coastal communities, Get Aquacultured! explores stories you won’t often hear in the mainstream media—but that matter for our oceans, our food systems, and our future. Fun, informative, and accessible, these conversations are designed to connect you with the people and ideas shaping aquaculture today

Mike Coogan

Hey there and welcome to Get Aquacultured!, the podcast where we dive into the deep end of the world's fastest growing food industry. On this podcast, we invite industry professionals, researchers and educators to bring you inside the systems that make up modern aquaculture. So whether you're a curious eater, a coastal neighbor, or someone who likes to nerd out about ocean science, we're glad you're here. Today on Get Aquacultured!, we're handing the mic to the next generation of ocean stewards. In this episode, we head to the Seacoast Science center to meet a group of local high school students who aren't just learning about marine science, they're living it. We'll hear what sparked their curiosity, what they're discovering in the lab and in the field, and how experiences like this are helping shape the marine scientists, aquaculture innovators and and coastal caretakers of tomorrow. So come get inspired.

The future of aquaculture is already here and they've got plenty to say.

Michael Doherty

So I'll kind of kick us off. My name's Michael Doherty. I'm a research project manager at the University of New Hampshire with New Hampshire Sea Grant. And I've been working in aquaculture in different ways since 2019. So about, what is that? Six years at this point, working with lumpfish, sea lice, steelhead trout, shellfish, seaweeds, all sorts of stuff. And it's pretty fun.

Gabby Bradt

Hi, everybody. I'm Gabby Bradt.

I'm the fisheries extension specialist for New Hampshire Sea Grant and UNH Cooperative Extension. And I am sort of a jack of all trades, but I have been doing aquaculture adjacent things since 2001, where I started to look at the effects of different feeds in little summer flounder we were trying to culture a long time ago. And then like Mike, I've been doing, I work with oyster growers, seaweed growers, and so on and so forth. But I do a lot of a broad array of different things with fisheries and aquaculture.

Mike Coogan

And I am Mike Coogan. I'm a research assistant professor at UNH and I've been doing aquaculture, depending on how you look at it. If you, if you count having aquariums at home for about 20 years, if you don't count that, about 10 years, and done all sorts of things. But these days I'm doing a lot of work on growing sea scallops offshore.

Kayla

My name is Kayla and I'm going to be a senior in high school in the fall. And my favorite marine organism are turtles.

Kaylyn

Hello, my name is Kaylyn. I will be A freshman in college in the fall. And my favorite marine organisms are sea lions.

Tad

Hi, I'm Tad and I will be a junior in high school in the fall. And my favorite organism is also sea turtles.

Jodwin

My name is Jodwin. I'll be a junior in the fall. My favorite marine animal is a penguin.

Mike Coogan

Cool.

Michael Doherty

And before we move on to our other guests, I do want to I think we should let you introduce yourselves too. But I also wanted to just kind of include the theme for this episode. Everyone has something in common here and that's that they are participants or employees working within the Seacoast Science Center's high school Marine Science fellowship. So that's kind of our, Our major theme. That's why we wanted you all here today and hear about your experiences with that and then, you know, talk more about other marine science aquaculture stuff.

Mike Coogan

Hello.

Joe

Hello. My name is Joe. I'm a instructor with the Marine Science Fellows. I've been with the program since its creation. I was a student once and now I'm one of the head instructors. It's a really good time. I also work at Seco Science Center.

This June marks my 10th year there.

Adriana

Hi, I'm Adriana. I'm also an instructor for this course and I'm going to be a senior in college in the fall.

Richie Hardy

Hi, I am Richie Hardy and I am the coordinator of the Marine Science Fellowship program at the Seacoast Science Center. So it is a 10 week program. We run two semesters, the fall and the spring, and then we have a summer option which is just community science. Basically the idea of the program is to introduce students to careers in marine science and get them out with experts that we know either at the science center or through UNH or other connections around the seacoast. Each week kind of has a different theme or spin. We have come here for aquaculture. We have done seaweed studies, we do salt marsh studies, a green crab study.

We have done marine mammal rescue so that the students can earn extended learning credits through their high school. So we get in contact with the guidance counselors and they can earn half a credit for taking the course or full credit for taking both semesters or just take it in terms of just their interest level and all of that. So the idea is to really just get them out, get them around meeting people who work in these great careers in marine science.

Joe

Absolutely, yeah. The point of the program is really to get high schoolers involved and get them prepared for the next steps. A big point of the fellows is to give them opportunities that will last them into college, allow them to do research projects that they devote themselves to, and they choose the topic of and help them build their networks. It's really important for us to stress that the program is led by the students and is for the students. The more they put in, the more they put out. And we really pride ourselves in allowing students to be free and really explore their passions.

Jodwin

I came to this program to explore the fields and what I wanted to be. I'm still looking because I'm not set on what I want to be when I grow up.

Mike Coogan

Me neither.

Jodwin

My favorite part of this program was definitely the kayaking because there was this thrill of something crazy happening, like a wave washing me over or a bird landing on my head or a seal popping up and saying hi.

Tad

Well, for me, I joined because I wanted to. I didn't know what. I don't know what I want to do when I grow up. So I wanted to get a feel for a variety of things. And that's something that spoke out to me, like, hey, I should try that.

And I did. I'm very glad I did.

I enjoyed kayaking the most, but the pleasure of finishing and seeing the fully researched project that I presented at the end, it made me happy.

Kaylyn

I have been interested in marine science for a really long time. I first kind of really found out about it in fifth grade, and since then I've just been, like, super obsessed. I actually did the marine science fellowship to fulfill a senior project requirement at my school. We don't do midterms or finals. We have, like, sophomore and senior projects. So that's how I got into it. And my favorite part was the overall research project that you had to do. I had so much fun because it was a topic that I was really interested in, and I got to use real live data and work with the marine mammal rescue team.

And it was just really awesome to make those connections already.

Kayla

I got interested in marine science because I think it's really important that we advocate for the ocean and science overall. And I joined the program because it was sent to me by a friend. And I thought it'd be good to look into the field and figure out if it's something that I want to pursue in college, which it is. And my favorite part was also the research project because I liked seeing the whole process that I had to go through and gathering all of the information.

Gabby Bradt

How did you hear about it and what piqued you? What piqued your interest about it?

Adriana

So I did the fellowship when I was in high school, so like, three, four years ago now. I was a fellow. My favorite part was also the research project that they have to do. So the research project is a progressive project that they work on throughout the whole semester that we have, like, checkpoints for. Like, you have to develop your question and your hypothesis and your research and everything. And if you want to do a physical experiment, like, behavioral experiments are very popular and things like that. So that was always my favorite part when I was a fellow.

And so then I ended up going to school at UNH, So I stayed in the area. I'm not a marine science major at UNH, I'm an animal science major. But I still kind of stayed in the loop. And I ended up applying for an education outreach internship my freshman year. And I was an intern this summer between my freshman and sophomore year at the science Center. And I asked if they needed any help with the fellowship after I ended my internship. And now I'm a teaching assistant with the fellowship.

And I couldn't be happier where I am.

Jodwin

Okay. So my amazing school counselor came up to me one day, and she's like, Jodi, I know you're interested in, like, ocean and the water and stuff, and I have this opportunity for you so it look good on your resume. And I was like, sure, why not? And I've had the best time.

Tad

I found out about it from my mom because my mom's always looking for opportunities for me and my 12 siblings.

Mike Coogan

Can you name them really fast?

Tad

Maire, Rafe, Matthias, Cecily, Me, Damien, Josie, Bennett, Lawrence, Patton, Quinna, Basil, and Rocco.

Gabby Bradt

Wow.

Tad

But I found out from my mom, from my mom, because she's always looking for opportunities for all of us. And I almost never wanted to leave the house. That's one of the perks of being homeschooled.

Mike Coogan

So.

Tad

So. But it shocked me as interesting because I hadn't been to the ocean in a long time because I lived really far away.

And I also. She knew I liked sea creatures and just creatures in general. I said, you know, let's do it. I almost never leave the house anyway. So.

Kaylyn

Yeah, I actually hadn't heard about the Seacoast Science center at all before I did the fellowship. But I. As I said, my school has a requirement for a senior project, which is something you're passionate about. Obviously, I'm passionate about marine science. And so I was originally looking into job shadows and things like that, and all the places I had reached out to kind of didn't work out. But in my research, I found the fellowship program. And so when everything else didn't work.

I resorted to that and I'm very glad I did because it was so much fun.

Kayla

And as I said before, my friend sent me the link through a social media post on their website, either on Facebook or Instagram, and I figured I'd give it a try because I grew up in the area going to the center all the time and I figured it'd be great to get more of an inside experience with it. So my research project was gathering information about nudibranchs, which are a type of sea slug, and I researched about how we can use their cells and study them to come up with the medication to help with cancer. So I did more of a medical route with that, but that was mine and it was more data and research. But some other people also had experiments and projects that they worked on.

Kaylyn

I decided to go for a research project on harbor seal mortality in the Gulf of Maine and I used I got in touch with the marine mammal rescue team team and was able to access their data and I looked at various demographics like age, sex to determine how that related to their mortality. Yes, and I measured dead seals to get a grasp on how the marine mammal rescue team gathers their data as well using frozen seals from the center.

Tad

I did mine on European green crabs because there's not enough of those out there. But I was doing it on specifically the behavior like what do they show any different behaviors compared to the local crabs?

Jodwin

My project was on the decrease of emperor penguins and the reproduction. I contacted three different places to gather my information. They didn't. But I thought of this idea that if I create a bio dome and I measure everything within the biodome that the emperor penguin reproduction will increase. The reason why that they have dropped the numbers is because of air pollution and the melting of the ice caps.

Joe

But below I did three projects with the fellowship back a long time ago. My first one was all of them were animal behavior centric. My first one was tagging fish and then mirror testing them to try to see if they showed any signs of self-awareness if they could recognize that they were tagged and try to clean themselves. Results varied and were insignificant. That will be a theme. The second one was on cuttlefish and was see testing some results that came out of Woods Hole to see if they actually were colorblind. They are colorblind although results were insignificant.

However, I trust Woods Hole's research much more than I trust my own considering it was done very jankily. And then my third project was done over Covid and it was looking at the growth rates and the survival rates of deep-sea megafauna and trying to see why they grow so big in an environment that is often called a desert or called an area with low, low biomass or low biodiversity. And trying to kind of change that narrative because the deep sea is in fact very biodiverse and is in fact very rich in animals and nutrients. There's a lot of giant things down there that are really cool. So there's a few things, a few factors that go into it. One of the weirdest things is that most things aside from giant squid, which cephalopods are my specialty, so put an asterisk on them, grow very, very slowly. I did a lot of looking at sleeper sharks, Greenland sharks, sixgill sharks, just because there's a lot of research on them.

They all grow significantly slower than other sharks in their class range, that research has shown. Most of it came on Greenland sharks and most of that research was done based on ones caught in Iceland and Icelandic populations. A similar trend was seen in megamouth sharks from the little bit of research that's been done there. Japanese giant spider crabs. The one big difference was in giant squid, which only live about two years and get to be the size of a school bus in that time frame. A lot of it does come with just the fact that everything that dies in the open ocean eventually ends up in the bottom of the ocean or in the deeps of the ocean. So the narrative of it being a desolate wasteland with not a lot of nutrients ends up becoming very, very false.

There's a lot of nutrients now it is a lot of dead particulate matter. But what you find is a lot of those organisms are feeding on that, right? Megamouth sharks are filter feeders. Blunt nosed, six gills are scavengers. Giant squid are feeding on a lot of that sea snow, especially in their adolescent juvenile stages. And giant spider crabs are feeding on a lot of that same whale fall or fish fall type material.

Adriana

I did two projects when I was in the Fellows. The first one was during COVID so I did it at home and it was on the effects of certain chemicals on seashell composition. So I basically just put a bunch of shells in a bunch of different chemicals for several days, like things like bleach and calcium, lime rust remover and vinegar and things like that. And that was very interesting. Most of them dissolve or weakened at least over time. And then the second project I did was on the chemotaxis of periwinkles. So I was trying to see if basically if they could Tell a difference based on the surface that they were on, if it was like artificial or if it was natural.

So I put like a rock and wood into a tank versus like plastic and rubber into a tank and they chose the surfaces at the same frequency. So they had no preference for artificial versus natural, natural material, which was very interesting. So those were the two projects I did during my time.

Michael Doherty

We'll start us off just by asking anyone who wants to answer, what is aquaculture to you? And whether or not you've ever visited like an aquaculture farm or you know. Yeah. Or a facility besides this one.

Kaylyn

I am fortunate enough to have learned a little bit about aquaculture. My junior year I took an AP environmental science course. And so I haven't done too, too much into it, but to the best of my understanding, it's commercial fish farming I'm usually done can be either freshwater or salt water. I know that there's a lot of benefits in terms of like space usage because it uses more like vertical space can be more beneficial in that way. But I also know that with like fish waste and space stuff that there can be pollution happening in that sense.

Jodwin

So I did search this up prior, but crawfish. And I just had a crawfish boil.

Kaylyn

So good.

Jodwin

But back when I was little down in Milford, they had a fish catchery. They would catch fish and then reproduce them to put them in like ponds or creeks and stuff.

Mike Coogan

Do you know how they grow crawfish?

Kayla

Nope.

Mike Coogan

It's pretty cool. So I spent a lot of time in the Deep south and that's where they primarily grow them. And they'll grow them in these big ponds and they grow them alongside them. It's actually totally multi trophic aquaculture. They'll grow them in rice paddies and if you've ever seen a rice paddy, which you probably have not, but their root systems, they have what's called detritus. They like break down dead stuff basically. And then insects will go hang out in those root systems and consume some of that dead stuff.

And then the crayfish will actually. Or crawfish or crawdad or whatever you want to call them. They'll eat those insects and that decaying material and they've got this crazy life cycle where you need a flooding of the pond and then you need the desiccation, the drying of the pond. And when it starts drying out, all of the adults, they'll start digging holes along the side and they'll escape for a couple months and they'll breed within those little holes. They have and just survive until the water fills back up again. And then once that water fills up, all the babies come out. And it's this really, really cool, integrated multi trophic aquaculture system.

And you can get two crops out of it. You can get your crawdads, which is definitely the good crop, and then you can also get your rice crop out of it.

Gabby Bradt

I want to explore this idea more about what you guys know about aquaculture and your interactions with it or lack thereof. One of it is sort of this, what have you heard in sort of normal mainstream media. You mentioned, Kalyn, about the idea that it's not always environmentally groovy. And we're here to say let's think about that a little bit more. But what have you guys heard about things like salmon farms or shrimp farms or any of the other sort of imported seafood? Do we know if it's farmed or not?

Joe

From what I've heard of aquaculture, I should also preface in the fact that I did spend some time working as a tech here at Coastal Marine Labs. I am familiar with the process of aquaculture more than I think the average person of the public. But in discussing this with my family and others, there is a negative perception around some of it. May it be true or not, it's still there. I know with a lot of Norwegian salmon, at least this is coming from my family and some things that they've said, they don't always trust it. They're suspicious of the excess gray fat and the fact that it's another color from, from wild caught salmon. There's also, just like within any large industry, I feel like there is parts of it that are really good and parts of that are great for the environment.

And then there are parts of it that need to be cleaned up and parts of it that are not as environmentally friendly or done as sustainably or humanely as possible. I think it's the public's way or the public, the nature of the public eye to always focus on the negative and not look at the positive, which is something that I think needs to change. I think something like this podcast does an excellent job at changing and shedding light on how much good is actually done. But that negative perception does still exist.

Kaylyn

I'm kind of in the area where before I went over it in class, I didn't really know what aquaculture was very much. I think in general there can be a lot of stigma around, like farmed fish as opposed to wild caught. But I do know that there have been like, I believe don't quote me on this necessarily, but I believe there has been a decrease in wild caught fish for a number of years now as opposed to aquaculture. So I'm sure it's a lot more prevalent than me, most people are aware of in day-to-day life. But it's also not something that I feel like many people are super familiar with.

Mike Coogan

Yeah, I mean, globally at least, aquaculture is now accounting for more than half of the seafood that we eat today. And I think that there's a number of reasons for that, but one of the, you know, one of the big things is that in the US it's just not super common. You go to Asia, South America, Africa, most of the rest of the world, it's primarily aquaculture. You know, we have this massive coastline in the US and we've had some of the healthiest and most abundant fisheries in the world for, you know, many centuries that were over harvested. If you go to a lot of these other countries though, almost all of their seafood or, you know, aquatic organisms, I should say that they're eating come from aquaculture. And one thing that you mentioned before, you know, you were talking about fish farming and I think that's what at least most Americans think of when they think of aquaculture. But if you just look at the word itself, aquaculture, you know, you're growing something in the water, it can be anything.

You know, you could grow sea slugs in the water. That's aquaculture. You can grow algae, you can grow oysters, you can grow, if you grew dolphins out there, wouldn't recommend it. Totally illegal. But just saying, you know, that would be aquaculture. And so it's interesting. And I think, you know, in the US we're also really, really big on eating fish.

And so that's why we think about fish when we think about aquaculture. If you went to China or Korea, for example, I mean, they eat a ton of seaweed. If you go to Europe, they're eating tons and tons of shellfish. And I feel like we're sort of just at the beginning stages of that.

Richie Hardy

I think for me, you know, I'm a tad older than the kids here, but for a long time I thought of aquaculture as something really negative. I did like that it was happening on land, in tanks, in dirty conditions, things like that. You know, this is probably like 20 years ago or so. And as I've grown and been more in the field and been with people who are actually doing the work, I mean, sugar kelp in the Pacific, it's like Amazing what they're doing with that. Or we have a mutual friend who runs an oyster farm here in Little Bay. Shout out to Hidden coast shellfish. And some of the positive aspects that obviously we know what oysters do for the water and for the environment, and then to be able to harvest those same oysters and sell them is just amazing.

So I think for me, I like to grow and learn. I'm a career educator and I like to just see what's happening. I know that, like, Joe was referencing some of the different articles that you see, and a lot of it does seem negative. I know that recently in Mid Coast Maine, there's a bit of a panic because there are these giant companies from Europe that are buying up spots and the lobstermen are scared that it's going to ruin the environment for the lobster, for the lobstermen. But obviously education is key. That's how I live my life. That's why this is my 25th year as an educator, both public and private.

So I think, you know, what you guys are doing and getting the word out and getting, you know, students here can do a lot for aquaculture.

Gabby Bradt

So I think part of. Part of the whole aquaculture, seafood, consumer aspect of things is how many of you eat seafood regardless, on a regular basis.

Michael Doherty

Yeah, about half.

Gabby Bradt

About half. And what are you normally eating? What species? I'm going to start calling out Tad. You don't eat any seafood? Rarely.

Tad

This is just like canned tuna every.

Mike Coogan

Once in a while.

Gabby Bradt

Okay. All right. How about you, Kaylin?

Mike Coogan

That is not aquaculture, by the way.

Gabby Bradt

No, right now I'm just trying to get to, like, you know, who eats seafood in general.

Kaylyn

I actually didn't eat seafood for a really long time. But one of the things that I do have when I do eat it every now and then is like, crab most often or like cod or haddock if I'm in Florida. Mahi, mahi. Yummy.

Gabby Bradt

Kayla, what about you?

Kayla

I do not eat seafood or any other meat. I'm a vegetarian.

Gabby Bradt

Oh, okay. All right, Jody.

Jodwin

I mean, I'm not a picky eater. I'll eat anything that's put on my plate. Yeah, I'll eat anything I've eaten like red snapper, rainbow trout, salmon. Gross, Gross.

Gabby Bradt

I'm gonna follow up on that in a minute.

Jodwin

But, yeah, that's a lot I've eaten. And yeah, lobster. Lobster is one of my favorites.

Gabby Bradt

What about you guys? No.

Joe

I'm in a similar place. Similar place on the seafood diet. Seafood on my plate and eat it. I'm a fisherman. I Trap. So I eat crabs that I catch, green crabs. Actually. I've gotten into catching and cooking more as well as eating fish all up and down the Atlantic coast.

Everything from cod and haddock up here, cobia in the central Atlantic, snapper and mahi down south in Florida. I have a particular tooth for scallops and yellowfin tuna scallops. I have started to seek out more aquacultured ones and I am excited to know of some of the programs happening here at CML that are aquaculturing scallops because they are one of my favorites. And then yellowfin, I've done research, but it's not a high priority species in a lot of aquaculture. Bluefin tuna, yes. Yellow fin tuna, not as much.

Adriana

I've really tried to be more open minded about it. I really have. I just, I'm not a big seafood person, unfortunately.

Gabby Bradt

Well, so. And the reason I sort of went all around. Right. Is because, you know, part of why we are looking into aquaculture and, and farming more seafood and putting more seafood products on our plates is because we have a huge population. And like you said, the wild harvest kind of needs a break. And if we are able, if we're going to feed the population globally. Right. Why not figure out what will grow, how we can do it and how we can do it sustainably?

And I think part of the issue with the misconception about farmed, about farmed finfish for example, is, you know, people, people are afraid of what they don't really know. And once, you know, like Richie's saying, once you start seeing how it can be done and how people are doing it and the different species that we can grow both on the water and in land, it's, you know, it's pretty cool. And in terms of the science aspect of things, it's pretty fascinating. Like, forget about that. But what's up?

Joe

I just wanted to bounce a question back at the hosts if possible. We're talking a lot about, you know, aquaculturing these species and you've talked about fin fish in general. I know one thing that can hold up some people is they like specific seafoods that aren't being aquacultured. So, so I just wanted to ask, you know, there's a limited slate. We talk about salmonids, the steelhead and salmon. We talked tilapia and I mentioned tuna. But do you know of any plans to do other popular species things like mahi?

We had mentioned skipjack and canned tuna and maybe elaborate on some of that.

Mike Coogan

Sure, sure. So I will start off by saying this, that if you think about terrestrial agriculture. Here, let me turn this. All right. If you think about terrestrial agriculture, what are we talking about? We got chickens, we've got cows, pig, turkey sometimes and like sheep and goat sometimes. Right? That's pretty much it.

That's five animals. I mean, what else do people really eat?

Not a ton.

Joe

Rabbits.

Mike Coogan

Rabbits. But you know, sort of pretty niche, pretty niche. If you like eating rabbit. I've got a thousand of them in my yard and please, please get them. But when we're talking about, and you know, there's, you know, many, many, many thousands of edible animals on land that you either have to hunt for or people don't really eat them at all. You know, 99% of our terrestrial diet is made up of like really two to five species. When you think about the ocean, people still want to eat.

You know, there's so many species to consume, to eat. And depending on where you are in the world, you, you know, they haven't all been domesticated. Most of terrestrial agriculture, it's been happening for tens of thousands of years. We're way behind that for the most part with seafood. You know, China is really considered sort of like the dawn of aquaculture. They've been doing carp and other types of aquaculture for thousand plus years. But a lot of the new species, even like your salmon or your salmonids, they're really in the last couple decades as far as tuna, mahi mahi, some of those large pelagic kind of sport fish.

There's been a lot of research done. I've grown both mahi mahi and yellowfin tuna and they're extremely challenging for their own reasons. There is a ton of work with mahi mahi, for example. They are one of the best species biologically to culture. They grow about as fast as you could grow anything. You can get them to, you know, a harvest size within a few months. But they're incredibly cannibalistic.

They don't like to be contained. They'll like crash into the walls. And they don't like net pens really either. And they don't always have great, what's called food conversion ratios, like the amount of food you give them versus the amount of food you get out of them, I guess they put on as meat. With tuna, they're even more challenging. They're sort of the, the gold standard of fish. They're one of the hardest fish to, to get to spawn and even harder to get through that larval process with like a chicken, for example, when it hatches you put a grow light on it, you start feeding it, and it is pretty simple to get it to an adult stage.

When we're talking about tuna things, they're born, they spawn by the hundreds of thousands of eggs, sometimes millions of eggs. They float to the surface naturally in the open ocean, get fertilized, and it'll usually take a few days before they hatch. Then they're like, they have their egg sac that they're surviving on for a little while, then they need to find their own food. And it's hard to recreate that in a fish tank, for example. You have to give them live feeds early on. You have to, you have to prevent bacteria and diseases from hitting them. They have to inflate their swim bladder, but they have to not get stuck on the surface tension of the water.

They can't get, you know, if they poop on the bottom and there starts. You start getting bacteria down there, they can get infections. If you have anything spread from one, it can quickly spread throughout some of these other environments. The other thing is, you know, if you've ever watched like a family of geese, sometimes you watch them over a course of a month or so, and you'll see like it starts with 10 geese, and by the end they only have like three or four. That's still pretty good.

You know, 30% survived. If you're talking about a large pelagic fish, like a bluefin tuna, for example, I mean, one of probably every couple thousand are surviving. And so we're trying to increase those odds in aquaculture, which makes it really challenging. But there's a lot of research that's happening for a lot of those species. Japan is probably the best in the world at growing tuna and finfish aquaculture, sort of in general. But, you know, University of Miami, where I studied, they've been doing a lot of research on that. And yeah, there is a ton of work, because if you can, there's a ton of research and ton of investment going into there.

Because if you can successfully grow bluefin tuna, I mean, some of those fish, fish go for thousands of dollars a piece. I mean, the best ones in the world sometimes go for a million dollars a pop. So it can be a huge, huge, huge moneymaker.

Gabby Bradt

But that's the challenge, right? It's the sort of influx of money and investment in both research and then whoever is investing in it, it's like, okay, am I going to make my money back? And then some.

Adriana

Going back real quick to what people kind of think about aquaculture. I know I'm not sure if this is in the realm that we're talking about, but I know there's some ethicality concerns regarding like the production of caviar and sturgeon and things like that. Do you guys have any comments on that or any misconceptions you'd like to?

Michael Doherty

I don't, I don't know a ton about, you know, sturgeon caviar. We visited a facility that was farming sturgeon for the purpose of harvesting caviar, but they also harvested the flesh of the fish as well in the skin. I do know that one caviar alternative is from the lumpfish and there's mostly landed in Canada and shipped down here, but there's some landings in Maine. Whether or not that, I mean, probably more sustained, sustainable in some than some types of caviar, but I couldn't really say for sure.

Gabby Bradt

I don't know very much about caviar either. But this facility that we visited in North Carolina, they, the caviar was very good and they were selling little tiny, what was it, like 1 ounce tins for like 100 bucks. So it is definitely lucrative in terms of the ethical nature of it. In farmed sturgeon, I haven't heard too much. I imagine the ethicality of doing it for, you know, wild caught sturgeon, I mean, that is sort of a, you know, imperiled population and so on. So I think having the ability to grow sturgeon and, you know, harvest caviar from that as well as, you know, then using the rest of the fish, I think is actually a plus. But apparently the person who runs that farm didn't start making any money on that farm for like seven years.

So it's a long term investment, but it's doing pretty well.

Mike Coogan

Yeah, it takes about seven years to get to the point where you can actually harvest them. And there's been some research with them where you can do a surgery and remove their eggs for caviar and then sort of stitch them back up. I think for me that's more of an ethical issue than just using the entire animal. I think it's great when they use the flesh. It's really popular in like Jewish communities as they sell it as white fish. It's okay. But yeah, they, it takes a long time.

People can become millionaires on caviar, but it takes seven plus years to get them to adulthood. And that's sort of the challenge.

Lumpfish is what, two years? One year?

Michael Doherty

Two years, yeah. In sort of a lab or recirculating aquaculture system setting, it would take about Two years before female lumpfish start developing eggs. In the wild, it's more like four years. But in the lab, it tends to accelerate.

Gabby Bradt

Does anybody know what the largest aquaculture species in the United States is?

Michael Doherty

Large. Large as in, like, the biggest industry.

Gabby Bradt

Or like, what do we. What we grow the most of? And. Yeah.

Mike Coogan

Let'S take some guesses.

Joe

Yeah, I'm gonna take a wild guess and say tilapia

Jodwin

My guess is, like, oysters and bottom feeders, all that stuff.

Tad

I'd assume salmon.

Kaylyn

I would guess salmon also, just based on how common it is.

Kayla

Maybe shrimp.

Richie Hardy

Yeah, I would guess salmon because that's what I see the most in the stores. But I'm guessing I'm wrong.

Gabby Bradt

I'm actually not entirely sure. But I do think based on Aquaculture Academy that Mike Doherty and I went to, it was catfish. Catfish.

Michael Doherty

Good thing I didn't guess. I would have embarrassed myself.

Gabby Bradt

Did you sleep through that one? But, yeah, catfish. And how often do we up here catfish in the Northeast? I think that's part of the sort of communication of aquaculture. And what we know is, you know, a lot of it is very regionally based, and we don't talk about it a lot.

Mike Coogan

I grew catfish for three years down in Alabama, and I had never even touched one until I went down there and I ate it every day, and I have not touched one since.

Michael Doherty

I like catfish every week, once in a very rare while.

Mike Coogan

They're delicious. I love.

Michael Doherty

They're delicious. Sometimes, in my opinion.

Mike Coogan

Yeah, you got to. Any fish that you sort of have to fry or blacken is probably not the greatest fish.

Michael Doherty

But so we're at about, like, 5:00pm do we want to start to conclude? I also kind of want to give our visitors the opportunity to ask us a few questions, if you have any.

Tad

I do have a question about the lumpfish, because you said in tanks that it can be two years before eggs. Why is it so much shorter from tanks compared to the wild?

Michael Doherty

That's a good question. You know, and I couldn't say for sure with, like, definite scientific data behind me, but I believe it's because their. Their environment is so much more controlled in terms of temperature, oxygenation of water. You're kind of watching every single parameter of the water quality, and then also their. Their diet, their nutrition. You're giving them exactly what, you know they need to grow. Where in the wild, you know, they might eat a jellyfish one day, then not eat for three days, and then eat like a copepod that they find where in the lab you're feeding them Every day, a very balanced, formulated feed of protein and fats.

So I think it has something to do with that. Just kind of giving them the peak environmental conditions and diet conditions that they need to grow. That might kind of accelerate their. Their development.

Tad

Okay, thank you.

Michael Doherty

Yeah.

Kaylyn

I know at the beginning you asked us what made us interested in the fellowship and in marine science, and I kind of want to turn that around. Like, what got each of you guys into both marine science in general and then aquaculture more specifically?

Michael Doherty

Yeah, I'll start and I'll be quick. But what really got me into marine science, I kind of started in biology in undergrad, but I didn't really know what I was going to do. I thought maybe I'd study birds or something. But then I took an invertebrate zoology class, and just learning about this massive biodiversity of inverts living in the marine ecosystem kind of blew me away. So I started learning more and more. I researched lobsters. I love lobsters.

I have a lobster tattoo. And then got a job at the Seacoast Science center for a number of years, where I kind of became more and more focused on, like, seafood science. Kind of this really direct way that people interact with these marine organisms. And that just led me to aquaculture and grad school and now this job here.

Gabby Bradt

I was always very drawn to the ocean. I spent all my summers up in Acadia, and I was the youngest by, like, 18 years in my family. So I was alone a lot. So I spent a lot of time just in tide pools and poking around in there. And so biology in general was always a thing for me. But it wasn't until I spent my junior year in college. I had a summer internship with my advisor, and she took me down to Woods Hole because we were collecting.

She was a developmental embryologist biologist, and she took me down to the. To Woods Hole, and we went to collect squid fingers, squid egg cases. And that changed my entire life. I have my baby squids on my leg, tattooed on there. I did my whole PhD on the development of squids. And then for my PhD, I was also on a kind of different track. And just like Mike, I took an invertebrate embryology class, and that was it.

It's like, this is where I need to go. I wasn't quite sure what aspect of it I was going to do, but I knew I wanted to do a PhD and then part of that process, I ended up working at Great Bay Aqua Farms because. Because it was part of a research assistantship.

So my advisor was like, you need money. I need you to go do this. Have fun. So then baby things, right? So growing baby things was essentially. And then it just sort of evolved. But yeah, seeing those baby squids was like the best thing that ever happened to me.

Still love them. They are my favorite.

Mike Coogan

I guess similar to both of y' all that I always felt a strong draw to the ocean. But I think what made me obsessed was Steve Irwin the Crocodile Hunter. I hope you guys are familiar. I'm glad you are awesome. I watched that nonstop as a kid. That's all that was pretty much on. And then I always, I had this amazing aquarium store, like a fish store near my house growing up.

And I would go to it every single day on the way back from school, like get off the subway, go into the store, spend like two hours as a 12 year old with some 45 year old men. And basically they had me working there, not paying me for a couple years. That was gonna be my first job. Then they closed down, broke my heart. And I had a dark couple years where I didn't know where I was going. Worked in restaurants and all that jazz. And then when I went to college, I started taking some classes and I took a bunch of fishery classes and biology classes and all of that.

And it was all really fascinating to me. But it all seemed very doom and gloom, at least about how the state of the world's oceans were. It was the fact that everything has just been declining for the last 50 plus years. And it didn't seem to be getting any better, even though there was tons of research being put towards it. And then I took an aquaculture class and it was like a light bulb went off. And I'm not saying that it's the silver bullet, but I was like, oh my God, there is. You know, instead of taking fish out of the ocean, we can grow our own fish and we can eat them or restock them into the ocean or streams or whatever it is.

And I was like, that is absolutely brilliant. My sort of like, you know, reptile brain was like, one plus one equals two. We don't take fish out of there. It's gotta be good, you know, and it's not quite that simple, but it's in a certain way it is. And it is a solution to a really large and complicated problem that the more research you put into it, the better the results are. I also love, love, love the hands on aspect of it. A lot of my friends that were doing fishery science, they were crunching numbers all day.

And I've never been Somebody that loves to crunch numbers. I like to get my hands on slimy fish, and I'd get to do that every single day. Day. And how cool is that?

Michael Doherty

Mike, Gabby and I both have tattoos of our favorite organisms. Do you have any plans for a tattoo?

Mike Coogan

I don't have any plans for a tattoo, man. All right, let's do it.

Gabby Bradt

Let's do it. No, but I will say, even at my very advanced age, the aspect or, you know, sort of aquaculture. The field of aquaculture is. There's so many components to it. Mike and I did this aquaculture academy last year, and we went to all these different places, and every time we went to, like a new facility or to. There was this place called Carteret Community College. And the opportunities for, you know, aquaculture science or, you know, life support science, all of the aquarium sciences, I was like, I want to take that class.

I want to take Shellfish 101. Just because there's so much to learn and there's so many different aspects to it. It's not just growing the fish, but maybe learning how to set it all up and then nutrition science. For someone like me, I'm severely ADHD, so I'm like, ooh, something else that's super shiny. And I want to keep learning. So if anybody is kind of like that and just really interested in either the. The science aspect or the hands on aspect, I feel like getting the word out about the opportunities for aquaculture is really tremendous.

And we're hoping if this went on for eight hours, I mean, it would be great. But, you know, maybe next time we'll do a little bit more about that.

Mike Coogan

Part two.

Gabby Bradt

Part two.

Michael Doherty

Yeah. Maybe we should.

Gabby Bradt

Yeah.

Michael Doherty

Yeah, I think. I don't know. Now might be a good time to.

Mike Coogan

Yeah. Unless someone has.

Michael Doherty

Unless we have any other questions.

Gabby Bradt

I even have a green crab on my Acadia tattoo.

Mike Coogan

Cool.

Adriana

We kind of reiterated that education was really important in this aspect and getting people involved. So what kinds of opportunities do you guys have through Sea Grant or through CML for either high schoolers or undergrad students or people that really, really want to learn and really want to be involved?

Mike Coogan

Should we each take turns? I guess.

Gabby Bradt

Yeah.

Mike Coogan

Sorry. So it was what sort of opportunities we have. Sea Grant for high school students and just people in general. Does anyone have something ready to certify?

Michael Doherty

There's a couple of programs I work with on. On one end, there's a great volunteer or a couple of good volunteer programs through New Hampshire Sea Grant and Cooperative Extension. Excuse me. One of them being The UNH Marine Docents, which is a volunteer group that does a lot of outreach type work and educates sort of a variety of people, but a lot of it being more maybe elementary to high school age people in different marine biology topics. There's also often. Oh, gosh, I'm blanking. Community science volunteers.

Gabby Bradt

Coastal research.

Michael Doherty

Coastal research volunteers that kind of organize community science based on projects. Research projects where people can volunteer and actually help collect data or, you know, whatever, measure fish or measure sand. Sand dunes and a lot of cool stuff. I might not be doing it justice, but those are a couple of good programs through New Hampshire Sea Grant.

Gabby Bradt

Are you asking more specifically about aquaculture education or just in case general or marine science in general?

Adriana

I mean, more specifically aquaculture. Yeah.

Gabby Bradt

So my own programming isn't necessarily aquaculture the way I do. Like I said earlier, I was sort of aquaculture adjacent and basically take research being done and bring it to the general public. And one of the programs that we had and I might bring back if people, you know, are not knocking down on my door was called Seaweed Mania. And a lot of it had to do with taking the sugar kelp that was being grown out at the aquafort here and teaching people about how aquaphort was working, multi trophic aquaculture. And then teaching people that, hey, you can actually eat seaweeds. Let's go to the drowned forest and learn to identify them, the edible ones and so on. So I'm more of a, you know, more through culinary education about the farmed things.

But I think one really great opportunity is getting to know some of our oyster growers. That's the biggest aquaculture industry here in New Hampshire is shellfish. You know, all 12, 15 farms. But they really have a lot to say. And so, you know, getting to know some of those fish farmers and getting to go visit a farm is really good. Spinny Creek is great. And then these jokers over here, call them up and say, can we get a tour? Right. Because that platform is really amazing in terms of education.

And then if there's internships or fellowships through Sea Grants, we have the Doyle Fellowship. UNH Extension has some fellowships in the summer, so. And definitely, you know, if anybody's interested, give us a call, see if something can work out.

Mike Coogan

I don't have too much to add. You guys covered a lot. The only thing I would say is, you know, getting a job on the water in general. There's like a really great fisherman apprentice program here for, I think you have to be 16 years old and order to do it, but you can learn how to basically lobster fish. And those are skills that you don't really learn in college. Spending time on the water and skills that will set you apart from other people that you know have their four year degree. It's so important in aquaculture to be comfortable on the water, to be comfortable, working hard, getting your hands dirty.

And if you can get like a captain's license out of it and make a little bit of cash, then that's awesome. What else is there? Oyster farmers. This podcast is probably the greatest way to learn about aquaculture in the world.

Gabby Bradt

The three of us, right?

Mike Coogan

Plus Michael.

Gabby Bradt

That's right.

Mike Coogan

Before, before we do wrap up, I was just curious because we gave you so many questions. Okay, well, I was going to include this, but as we wrap up, we wrote this whole list of questions, questions, and we got to maybe like three of them and then went on all sorts of tangent. Totally my fault, which is, you know, I. I'll take responsibility and I think it's okay. But I'm curious, were there any questions that you saw here that you really just, like, want to answer that you thought were super exciting?

Jodwin

So one of the questions was, what role does the generation have in protecting Earth's natural resources? Yeah, I think our generation is living in a world affected by industrial growth and they know what is happening to Earth. And with this knowledge, I believe that they're able to make the change.

Mike Coogan

Rock on. I think we could end on that.

That was beautiful. Okay, thanks for listening. Each episode is sustainably cultured here at the University of New Hampshire and produced by Talia Katreczko. Get Aquacultured! is funded by the EE Blue Aquaculture Literacy grant and supported by NOAA and the North American Association for Environmental Education. Subscribe today and listen to more episodes wherever you get your podcast. And if you like what you heard, leave us a review.

We'll catch you next time on Get Aquacultured!.