Statistic of Yellowfin tuna caught by foreign vessels in Malagasy waters (2014 – 2018)

Yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) is one of the main targeted species for industrial tuna vessels operating in the Malagasy waters. The data used in this paper are from the logbook of the tuna longliners and purse seiners who operated within the Malagasy EEZ over the last five years (2014-2018). For the length frequency data, the data collected are from the monitoring of the seiners landing at the port of Antsiranana. The individuals are identified, and measured according to the fork length (FL) and to the pre-dorsal length (LD1).The total catch from foreign fleets has been in the order of 47 244 t over the past five years, an average of 9 449 t per year.  Yellowfin tuna represents 27% of the catches (12 860 t), which is equivalent to an annual average catch of 2 572 t. 25,546 of Yellowfin were sampled from 2014 to 2018 during the landing of purse seiners at the port of Antsiranana. Collected data shows that the size of Yellowfin caught ranges from 30 cm to 170 cm. The size frequency is dominated by the one between 50 and 60 cm.