This dataset lists fishing effort targetting tuna and tuna-like species from the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) by purse seiners from 1970 to 2015. Efforts are stratified by year, month, unit of effort, fishing mode (i.e. type of school used), area (5° squares). It corresponds to the effort part of the WCPFC catch-and-effort (task2) dataset.

Efforts are expressed in several units : days fishing, number of sets. For each stratum, the effort is available in both units.

This dataset was downloaded on the WCPFC 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 WCPFC web page where the dataset has been downloaded.

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

This database represents the most complete purse seine data available to the WCPFC that can be disseminated into the public domain in accordance with the current “Rules and Procedures for the Protection, Access to, and Dissemination of Data Compiled by the Commission” (“RAP” – see http://www.wcpfc.int/doc/data-02/rules-and-procedures-protection-access-and-dissemination-data-compiled-commission ). In reference to the RAP (Paragraph 9), cells where effort is less than or equal to the maximum value estimated to represent the activities of two vessels have been removed from the public domain data (the cells are retained with their time/area information, but all catch and effort information in these have been set to zero).