Last week Madeira (Portugal) hosted the 30th conference of the European Cetacean Society (ECS). The ECS was established in 1987 and aims to promote and advance the scientific studies and conservation efforts of marine mammals and to gather and disseminate information about cetaceans to members of the Society and the public at large. Each year the ECS organizes an annual conference in a different European country. Morigenos team attended this year's conference and actively participated with several presentations. These included an invited opening talk on the threats to Mediterranean marine mammals in a workshop on the same topic, as well as contributions on cetacean spatial modelling, bycatch mitigation and the implementation of European legislation for cetacean conservation. In the main part of the conference we presented a talk on the status of dolphin conservation in Slovenia. As a member of the EU, Slovenia is required to take measures for the conservation of bottlenose dolphins, including the designation of Natura 2000 sites under the EU Habitats Directive, given that the species is regularly present within Slovenian waters. However, the small extent of Slovenian national waters and the high mobility of dolphins render this process problematic. We presented a case study on the specificity and difficulty of implementing the Habitats Directive in a marine environment, particularly for species that regularly transgress national borders. All of the presented contributions by Morigenos received very positive feedback, and some of them were even identified as examples of good practice.
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