This dataset lists the spatio-temporally aggregated catch of tuna and tuna-like species (i.e. billfish, bonitos, and mackerel) harvested by the french surface fisheries in the Atlantic and Indian oceans from 1981 to 2017. Species-specific catches expressed in weight or number are stratified by fishing gear, vessel flag reporting country, fishing mode (i.e. type of school used), type of catch (e.g. landed, discarded), time (regular intervals of 1 month) and area (statistical squares of 0,33° longitude and latitude). The data primarily comes from the log books.

These data were collected by the Observatory of Exploited Tropical Pelagic Ecosystems (Ob7) of the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD). The source fine-grained data (i.e. precise location and date) were first extracted from the database and then aggregated on a 1 month timeframe and 0,33° longitude and latitude resolution grid to produce this dataset. Additional details are provided in the « supplemental information » and in the « lineage » sections.