Review of the statistical data available for neritic tuna and seerfish species

To provide participants at the 11^th Working Party on Neritic Tunas (WPNT11) with a review of the data and information available on neritic tuna and seerfish species under IOTC mandate as available in the IOTC databases as of May 2021 (Table 1). IOTC fisheries statistics are available from 1950 but some subsistence fisheries catching neritic tunas and seerfish have been operating in some coastal areas of the Indian Ocean for centuries (e.g., Yadav et al. 2020). The document summarises data on retained (nominal) catches, catch-and-effort, size-frequency and other related data available for the period 1950-2019 and provides a range of fishery indicators for fisheries catching the six IOTC neritic tuna and seerfish species occurring in the IOTC area of competence