World Aquaculture 43 Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Orissa, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu, Kerala and Karnataka (Chakrabarthy 2006). Murrel culture is about four decades old in our country with the first demonstration on the Madras Sunkesula fish farm (now in AP) by the State Fisheries Department. Further attempts made by the State Fisheries Department of Hyderabad and Bombay and CIFRI Bhadra Centre (Karnataka) have not produced tangible results. Fish farmers in India are unable to culture murrels because of non-availability of fingerlings and lack of feeding and culture techniques. Fish farmers who have attempted murrel farming have not succeeded because they have sustained severe mortality from Epizootic Ulcerative Syndrome (EUS). Even though giant murrel culture has a wider scope, it has not yet become popular for various reasons. Fish farmers in India are not familiar with brood fish nutrition, fingerling production, larval rearing and growout culture. In other words fingerlings and feed are the two major problems in murrel farming. The latter is not yet standardized because murrels are carnivorous, piscivorous and cannibalistic. A technology package for striped murrel culture was developed by the CARE research team with financial assistance from the Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi, Government of India (SSP/RD/001/96). The technology developed was successfully transferred to fish farmers with assistance from Department of Biotechnology, New Delhi, Government of India (BT/PR1892/SPD/16/137/2000) by the research team of the Center for Aquaculture Research and Striped murrel - Channa striatus Extension. To popularize giant murrel culture among fish farmers, the CARE research team collected giant murrel fingerlings from Bhavanisagar reservoir, with assistance from fishermen using dragnets. The fingerlings were transported to the CARE Aquafarm using plastic containers. They were reared in cement tanks, 4.5 m×4 m×2 m, for a period of one week during which they were fed beef liver and semi-moist feed dough (Table 2). After one week, 200 uniform sized fingerlings were se-
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