Tilapia Production On The Rise
Traditional fishing on the Costa Rican Pacific Ocean is rapidly losing ground to the production of tilapia in large ponds located in the Guanacaste Province, in the Northern Pacific.

The Costa Rican Fisheries Institute (Incopesca) disclosed that the tilapia production reached 19,000 tons in 2004.

In the same period, 2,500 boats fishing off the Pacific Coast caught 15,370 tons of mahi mahi, snapper, shark, sardines, shrimp, lobster, and other marine species.

Official sources said that the traditional catch has been declining since the year 2001, mainly because of pollution and over-fishing, while fish, shrimp, and prawn farms have been flourishing, so much so that their overall joint production is now 24,583 tons.