BRITAIN'S GAME FISHES: CELEBRATION AND CONSERVATION OF SALMONIDS. By Mark Everard and Paul Knight.

2013 1st edition. 8vo (160 x 240mm). Ppviii,232. Colour and b/w photographs, illustrations. Black boards, spine titled in gilt.

Pelagic Monographs number one. This book is dedicated to the realisation that rivers, lakes, estuaries and coasts must be waters fit for the future, serving the wellbeing of all species: fishes, humans and all water-dependent life. Britain's Game Fishes provides an in-depth natural history of each native salmonid species in the British Isles: Atlantic salmon, brown trout / sea trout, Arctic charr, grayling and whitefishes, along with the familiar alien species, the rainbow trout. In the second section of the book, Everard and Knight detail the pressures these fish face from human activities such as changes in land use, agriculture, housing needs, and their concomitant pollution effects, as well as water abstraction, habitat destruction and climate change. The authors examine the cost to salmonid species of high-seas fisheries, coastal and estuarine netting, angling and fish farming. Highlighting the importance of fishes of the salmon family for the wellbeing of society, both as food and recreation, this book shows their critical importance as 'ambassadors of the wild' - iconic indicators of the health of the environment. Dust-wrapper illustration by David Miller.