Book excerpt: European Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises: Marine Mammal Conservation in Practice presents an intimate view of the workings of international conservation agreements to protect marine mammals, detailing achievements over the last 25 years, identifying weaknesses and making recommendations that governments, scientists, marine stakeholders and the public can take to improve conservation efforts. The book is written by an experienced marine mammal scientist and award-winning conservationist, providing a unique synthesis on their status, distribution and ecology. In addition, it presents information on various conservation threats, including fisheries by catch, contaminants, noise disturbance, plastic ingestion and climate change. This comprehensive resource will appeal to marine mammal conservationists and researchers, as well as environmental and wildlife practitioners at all levels. - Offers an accessible review on how scientists study this challenging group of mammals to gather necessary evidence for conservation action - Illustrates, with striking images, all recorded regional species, including distribution maps, key threats and specific research methods - Includes contributions from leading scientists, conservationists, and members of government and international bodies, like IWC and UNEP