A 14-year time series of marine megafauna bycatch in the Italian midwater pair trawl fishery.

Fisheries bycatch is recognised as a global threat to vulnerable marine megafauna and historical data can contribute to quantify the magnitude of the impact. Here, we present a collection of three datasets generated between 2006 and 2019 by a monitoring programme on marine megafauna bycatch in one of the main Italian fisheries, the northern central Adriatic midwater pair trawl fishery. The three datasets consist of: (i) monitored fishing effort; (ii) bycatch and biological data of dolphins, sea turtles and elasmobranchs; (iii) and dolphin sightings.