This dataset lists catch of billfish species from the Commission for the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) by purse seiners from 1993 to 2015. Catches are stratified by year, month, species, fishing gear, fishing mode (i.e. type of school used), area (1° squares). It corresponds to the catch part of the IATTC catch-and-effort (task2) dataset.

This dataset was downloaded on the IATTC website. It was then restructured to be in line with the Sardara database structure (columns normalization, names, etc.). However the content of data and the code lists were kept exactly as their are available in the source dataset.

The description below (caracteristics, specific issues and problems that need to be taken into account) is extracted from the IATTC web page where the dataset has been downloaded.

Caracteristics, specific issues and problems that need to be taken into account :

Stratification by vessel flag reporting country is not available in this dataset, since IATTC confidentiality policy restricts the release of public domain data by both flag and set type.

The file contain data provided by Members and Cooperating Non-Members. Observers record billfish bycatch in number of individuals.

Estimated East Pacific Ocean billfish bycatch totals are presented in the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) Fishery Status Reports (http://www.iattc.org/FisheryStatusReportsENG.htm).