Throughout Europe, freshwater fish faunas are under threat. A cocktail of factors such as dam construction, introduced species, overfishing and poor water quality have caused large declines and local extinctions of many species around Europe (see Kirchofer & Hefti 1996; Collares-Pereira et al. 2002 for reviews). In spite of these threats, protected areas for fish in Europe are relatively scarce (Crivelli 2002) and not always effective (Cowx 2002)
