A curated list of open datasets, APIs, and tools for fishing, fish species, marine biodiversity, and ocean conditions.
Whether you're building a fishing app, doing fisheries research, training a species classifier, or mapping the ocean, this list points to open and freely usable data sources. It is maintained by FishRadar, the live fishing-conditions app, alongside two open datasets we publish (see Regulations and Species).
Contributions welcome — see Contributing.
- Species & Taxonomy
- Biodiversity & Occurrence Records
- Regulations
- Ocean & Weather Conditions
- Bathymetry & Marine GIS
- Fisheries & Stock Assessment
- Apps & Tools
- Contributing
- License
- FishBase — The global biodiversity information system on finfishes; taxonomy, ecology, distribution, growth, and more for ~35,000 species. The de facto reference for fish biology.
- World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) — Authoritative, curated list of names of marine organisms, with stable AphiaID identifiers and a public REST API.
- Catalog of Fishes (California Academy of Sciences) — The authoritative taxonomic database of fish species names and nomenclature.
- ITIS — Integrated Taxonomic Information System — Authoritative taxonomic information on plants, animals, fungi, and microbes, with TSN identifiers and an open API.
- FAO ASFIS List of Species — Standardized 3-alpha codes, scientific and common names for aquatic species used in fishery statistics.
- fishing-species-catalog (this org) — A compact, multilingual catalog of 196 sport-fishing species with stable ids, aliases, environment, latitude band, and conservation flags. CC BY 4.0. Also on 🤗 Hugging Face.
- GBIF — Global Biodiversity Information Facility — Billions of free and open species-occurrence records aggregated from thousands of datasets, with a powerful public API.
- iNaturalist — Crowdsourced, geotagged species observations with photos; research-grade records are exported to GBIF. API docs.
- OBIS — Ocean Biodiversity Information System — A global open-access database of marine species distribution, hosted by IOC-UNESCO.
- IUCN Red List — The global standard for the conservation status of species, with an API for status and range data.
- CITES Checklist & Trade Database — Species listed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, including many sharks, rays, eels, and sturgeon.
- open-fishing-regulations
(this org) — Machine-readable recreational fishing regulations (bag/size/slot
limits, seasons, licences) for 12 jurisdictions across 9 countries, each with
an official
sourceUrl. CC BY 4.0. Also on 🤗 Hugging Face. - NOAA Fisheries — Recreational Fishing Regulations — Official U.S. federal recreational fishing rules by region and species.
- RecFishing rules by U.S. state — Index of state fish & wildlife agencies, each the authoritative source for that state's licence and regulations.
- EU Fishing Rules (TACs and Quotas) — European Commission rules on catch limits and management measures.
- Open-Meteo — Free, open weather and marine forecast APIs (waves, sea-surface temperature, currents, wind) with no API key for non-commercial use. Excellent for fishing-condition apps.
- NOAA / NWS API — Official U.S. weather forecasts, alerts, and observations.
- NOAA Tides & Currents (CO-OPS) — Water levels, tide predictions, and real-time currents for U.S. coastal stations.
- NDBC — National Data Buoy Center — Real-time and historical marine observations (waves, wind, water temperature) from buoys worldwide.
- Copernicus Marine Service — Free, open European ocean-state data: currents, temperature, salinity, sea level, biogeochemistry (chlorophyll), forecasts and reanalysis.
- NASA OceanColor — Satellite ocean-color products including chlorophyll-a, a useful proxy for productivity.
- GEBCO — Global bathymetric grid of ocean and land elevation, freely downloadable.
- EMODnet — The European Marine Observation and Data Network: open bathymetry, geology, seabed habitats, human activities, and more, with WMS/WFS services.
- GMRT — Global Multi-Resolution Topography — A continuously updated, multi-resolution global elevation/bathymetry synthesis with a public web service.
- Marine Regions — Standard georeferenced marine place names and boundaries (EEZs, seas, ecoregions) with stable MRGIDs.
- Natural Earth — Free public-domain vector and raster map data, including coastlines and ocean polygons.
- RAM Legacy Stock Assessment Database — A compilation of stock-assessment results for commercially exploited marine populations worldwide.
- Sea Around Us — Reconstructed global fisheries catch data by country, taxon, and fishing sector.
- Global Fishing Watch — Open data and APIs on apparent fishing effort and vessel activity, derived from AIS.
- FAO FishStat — Global capture and aquaculture production statistics.
- FishRadar — Live fishing conditions, location-aware regulations, and species guidance. Browse regulations and species on the web, or get the app on iOS.
- pygbif — Python client for the GBIF API.
- rfishbase — R interface to FishBase and SeaLifeBase.
- obistools — R tools for data quality control against OBIS.
Found a great open fishing/marine dataset or tool that's missing? Please open a pull request — see CONTRIBUTING.md. Keep entries open or freely usable, accurately described, and alphabetical-ish within each section.
To the extent possible under law, the maintainers have waived all copyright and related rights to this list (the curation) under CC0 1.0. The linked resources retain their own respective licenses.
Curated by FishRadar.