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Fishery for tuna and tuna-like species is a major component in large pelagic fisheries in Iran and one of the most important activities in the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea. There are 4 coastal provinces in that areas about 6500 out of 12000 vessels consist of fishing boat, dhows and vessel which are engaged in tuna and tuna-like species fishing activities in the coastal and offshore waters. Gillnet and purse seine are two main fishing gear for catching large pelagic species in the IOTC area competency and also some of small boats used trolling in coastal fisheries. The annual production of large pelagic in Iran was 236,000 t in 2012 and 208,000 t belongs to tuna and tuna-like fishes in the Indian Ocean areas. Those catch consist of Yellowfin tuna35110 t, Skipjack 27051 t, Big eye tuna 1644 t, Longtail tuna 76297 t, Kawakawa26249 t, Frigate tuna 8219 t, Billfish11297 t, Indo-pacific king mackerel 5537 t, Narrow- barred Spanish mackerel16510 t. Although billfish are not normally targeted species, they are very common in offshore gillnet catches and are considered as by-catch species. Total billfish production in Iran in 2012 was 11315t and this is around 5.4% of the total tuna and tuna like fish production. The Sailfish dominated the billfish catch with 6365 t, followed by marlins 4364 t, and Swordfish 586 t.
Iran has taken various actions to implement the Scientific Committee and WPB10 recommendations. One of actions taken by Iran is improving data collection system for billfish fishery during 2012 .It is noteworthy to say that for 2012 we could identify and include swordfish and marlines catch in our data base. we have implemented artisanal gillnets modification of logbook template to meet mandatory minimum statistic requirement, particularly with regards to data recording of vessel position in IOTC area for target species, By-catch and discard.
