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ABSTRACTThis article examines the reception by voters of the first direct elections to the European Parliament in June 1979, using data from comparable surveys conducted shortly after Polling Day in eight of the nine member states of the European Community. Against a background of party campaigning and media coverage which often differed from that normally associated with national elections, four indices of popular involvement are examined: degree of interest in the campaign; evaluations of its presentation on television; the extent to which it was followed through the mass media and other channels of communication; and voters' perceptions of the issues that emerged from the campaign. A number of influences that affected turnout and other forms of electoral participation are then reviewed, including outlook on European affairs, partisan affiliations, demographic positions, and amount of mass media exposure to the campaign, a factor which appeared particularly significant for those voters whose interest in the campaign was relatively weak.

Increasing abundance of geese in North America and Europe constitutes a major conservation success, but has caused increasing conflicts with economic, health and safety interests, as well as ecosystem impacts. Potential conflict resolution through a single, 'one size fits all' policy is hindered by differences in species' ecology, behaviour, abundance and population status, and in contrasting political and socio-economic environments across the flyways. Effective goose management requires coordinated application of a suite of tools from the local level to strategic flyway management actions. The European Goose Management Platform, established under the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds, aims to harmonise and prioritise management, monitoring and conservation efforts, sharing best practice internationally by facilitating agreed policies, coordinating flyway efforts, and sharing and exchanging experiences and information. This depends crucially upon adequate government financing, the collection of necessary monitoring data (e.g., on distribution, abundance, hunting bags, demography, ecosystem and agricultural damage), the collation and effective use of such data and information, as well as the evaluation of outcomes of existing management measures.

Advances in technology and engineering, along with European Union renewable energy targets, have stimulated a rapid growth of the wind power sector. Wind farms contribute to carbon emission reductions, but there is a need to ensure that these structures do not adversely impact the populations that interact with them, particularly birds. We developed movement models based on observed avoidance responses of common eider Somateria mollissima to wind farms to predict, and identify potential measures to reduce, impacts. Flight trajectory data that were collected post-construction of the Danish Nysted offshore wind farm were used to parameterize competing models of bird movements around turbines. The model most closely fitting the observed data incorporated individual variation in the minimum distance at which birds responded to the turbines. We show how such models can contribute to the spatial planning of wind farms by assessing their extent, turbine spacing and configurations on the probability of birds passing between the turbines. Avian movement models can make new contributions to environmental assessments of wind farm developments, and provide insights into how to reduce impacts that can be identified at the planning stage.

Dabbling ducks (Anas spp.) are importantmigratory quarry species, protected as a shared resource under international legislation. However, there is a lack of sufficient high-quality data on vital demographic rates and long-term trends in numbers to judge the conservation status of many duck populations at the flyway level. In response to reported declines in the North-West European flyway population of theMallard, we compiled available data on this species in the Nordic countries up to 2010. Generally, national breeding numbers showed increasing trends, wintering abundance showed variable trends, and productivitymeasures indicated stable or increasing trends.Major knowledge gaps were identified, namely the size of hunting bags, the influence of the released Mallards and the role of short-stopping in explaining changing patterns of wintering abundance across the North-West European flyway. Numerically the Nordic breeding population appears in "good condition", and the wintering numbers have been either stable or increasing in the last two decades. The annual number of releases needs to be determined in order to judge the sustainability of the current levels of exploitation. Overall, none of the indicators showed alarming signs for the Mallard population in the Nordic countries when considered in isolation. However, the widespread decline in wintering numbers elsewhere across North-western Europe requires urgent pan-European action.