The Eurasian beaver (''Castor fiber'') or European beaver is a species of

beaver Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers ar ...

widespread across Eurasia, with a rapidly increasing population of at least 1.5 million in 2020. The Eurasian beaver was hunted to near-extinction for both its fur and castoreum, with only about 1,200 beavers in eight relict populations from France to Mongolia in the early 20th century. It has since been reintroduced into much of its former range and now lives from Western,

Southern Southern may refer to: Businesses * China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China * Southern Airways, defunct US airline * Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US * Southern Airways Express, M ...

Central Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...

and Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Russia through

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

and Mongolia, with about half the population in Russia. It is listed as least concern on the IUCN Red List.

Taxonomy

''Castor fiber'' was the

scientific name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

used by Carl Linnaeus in 1758, who described the beaver in his work ''

Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the system, now known as binomial nomen ...

''. Between 1792 and 1997, several Eurasian beaver zoological specimens were described and proposed as

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

, including: *''C. f. albus'' and ''C. f. solitarius'' by Robert Kerr in 1792 *''C. f. fulvus'' and ''C. f. variegatus'' by

Johann Matthäus Bechstein Johann Matthäus Bechstein (11 July 1757 – 23 February 1822) was a German naturalist, forester, ornithologist, entomologist, and herpetologist. In Great Britain, he was known for his treatise on singing birds (''Naturgeschichte der Stubenvög ...

in 1801 *''C. f. galliae'' by Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in 1803 *''C. f. flavus'', ''C. f. varius'' and ''C. f. niger'' by

Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest (6 March 1784 – 4 June 1838) was a French Zoology, zoologist and author. He was the son of Nicolas Desmarest and father of Eugène Anselme Sébastien Léon Desmarest. Desmarest was a disciple of Georges Cuvier and Alex ...

in 1822 *''C. f. gallicus'' Johann Baptist Fischer in 1829 *''C. f. proprius'' by Gustaf Johan Billberg in 1833 *''C. f. albicus'', ''C. f. balticus'' and ''C. f. vistulanus'' by Paul Matschie in 1907 *''C. f. birulai'' and ''C. f. pohlei'' by Serebrennikov in 1929 *''C. f. tuvinicus'' by Lavrov in 1969 *''C. f. belarusicus'' and ''C. f. osteuropaeus'' by Lavrov in 1974 *''C. f. belorussicus'' and ''C. f. orientoeuropaeus'' by Lavrov in 1981 *''C. f. bielorussieus'' by Lavrov in 1983 *''C. f. introductus'' by Saveljev in 1997 These descriptions were largely based on very small differences in fur colour and cranial morphology, none of which warrant a subspecific distinction. In 2005, analysis of

mitochondrial DNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial D ...

of Eurasian beaver samples showed that only two evolutionarily significant units exist: a western

phylogroup {{Short pages monitor The estimated population was only 1,200 by the early 20th century. In many European nations, the Eurasian beaver became extinct, but

reintroduction Species reintroduction is the deliberate release of a species into the wild, from captivity or other areas where the organism is capable of survival. The goal of species reintroduction is to establish a healthy, genetically diverse, self-sustainin ...

and protection programmes led to gradual recovery so that by 2020, the population was at least 1.5 million. It likely survived east of the Ural Mountains from a 19th-century population as low as 300 animals. Factors contributing to their survival include their ability to maintain sufficient genetic diversity to recover from a population as low as three individuals, and that beavers are monogamous and select mates that are genetically different from themselves. About 83% of Eurasian beavers live in the former Soviet Union due to reintroductions.

Continental Europe

The Eurasian beaver lives in almost all countries in Continental Europe, from Spain, France and the United Kingdom in the West, to Russia and Moldova in the East, and Montenegro, Serbia and Bulgaria in the South-East. In 2022, beaver signs were found in Portugal, near the border with Spain. The only significant areas where it has no known population are the Southern Balkans: Albania, Kosovo,

Northern Macedonia North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe. It gained independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Yugoslavia. It ...

, Greece and European Turkey. It is also not known to be present in the microstates of Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City. In Spain, the beaver was extirpated in the 17th century. In 2003, 18 beavers were unofficially released. Current range includes the Ebro river in La Rioja,

Navarre Navarre (; es, Navarra ; eu, Nafarroa ), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre ( es, Comunidad Foral de Navarra, links=no ; eu, Nafarroako Foru Komunitatea, links=no ), is a foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, ...

, and province of Zaragoza; the Zadorra river up to Vitoria-Gasteiz, the Arga river up to Pamplona, the Huerva river up to

Mezalocha Mezalocha is a municipality in the province of Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain. According to the 2004 census (INE INE, Ine or ine may refer to: Institutions * Institut für Nukleare Entsorgung, a German nuclear research center * Instituto Nacional de E ...

, and the

Jalón river Xaló (; es, Jalón ), is a municipality in the ''comarca'' of Marina Alta in the Valencian Community, Spain. Geography The town of Jalón is located in the Jalón Valley. The Jalón or Gorgos river crosses the town, which has a length of . ...

into the province of Soria. In November 2021, a young beaver was photographed for the first time outside the Ebro basin, in the upper Douro river in Soria. In 2020, the population was estimated to be more than 1,000. In Portugal, the beaver was distributed mostly in the main river basins north of the Tagus River, until it was extirpated around 1450. In 2023, signs of beaver activity were found on the Douro river about 5 km from the Spanish border. In France, the Eurasian beaver was almost extirpated by the late 19th century, with only a small population of about 100 individuals surviving in the lower Rhône valley. Following protection measures in 1968 and 26 reintroduction projects, it re-colonised the Rhône river and its tributaries, including the Saône, and other river systems such as Loire,

Moselle The Moselle ( , ; german: Mosel ; lb, Musel ) is a river that rises in the Vosges mountains and flows through north-eastern France and Luxembourg to western Germany. It is a bank (geography), left bank tributary of the Rhine, which it jo ...

, Tarn and

Seine ) , mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur , mouth_coordinates = , mouth_elevation = , progression = , river_system = Seine basin , basin_size = , tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle , tributarie ...

. In 2011, the French beaver population was estimated at 14,000 individuals living along of watercourses. In 2022, its range was estimated to have increased to of watercourses. In Germany, around 200 Eurasian beavers survived at the end of the 19th century in the Elbe river system in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg. Official reintroduction programs, in particular in Bavaria, resulted in major population growth and beavers are now found throughout most of eastern and southern Germany, with strongly established disjunct populations in the west. By 2019, beavers numbered above 40,000, and appear in many urban areas. In the Netherlands, beavers were completely extirpated by 1826. Due to official reintroductions since 1988, beavers are now found in most parts of the country, in particular the south, centre and north-west. The population was around 3500 in 2019. In Belgium the beaver was extirpated in 1848. Current populations are descendants of animals released in the

Ardennes The Ardennes (french: Ardenne ; nl, Ardennen ; german: Ardennen; wa, Årdene ; lb, Ardennen ), also known as the Ardennes Forest or Forest of Ardennes, is a region of extensive forests, rough terrain, rolling hills and ridges primarily in Be ...

in 1998–2000 and in Flanders in 2003. Some beavers also arrived in Flanders from the Netherlands in 2003. In 2018, the population was 2,200–2,400, with Flanders having around 400 beavers and Wallonia 1,800–2,000 beavers. In

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, the Eurasian beaver was hunted to extirpation in the early 19th century. Between 1956 and 1977, 141 individuals from France, Russia and Norway were reintroduced to 30 sites in the Rhône and Rhine catchment areas. As of 2019, Switzerland had an estimated 3,500 beavers (a sharp increase from 1,600 beavers in 2008), with permanent beaver presence along most larger rivers of the Swiss plateau and the Swiss Alps (with the exception of Ticino). In Poland, as of 2014, the beaver population had grown to 100,000 individuals. In Romania, beavers became extinct in 1824, but were reintroduced in 1998 along the Olt River, spreading to other rivers in Covasna County. In 2014, the animals were confirmed to have reached the

Danube Delta The Danube Delta ( ro, Delta Dunării, ; uk, Дельта Дунаю, Deľta Dunaju, ) is the second largest river delta in Europe, after the Volga Delta, and is the best preserved on the continent. The greater part of the Danube Delta lies in Ro ...

. In Russia, by 1917, beaver populations remained in four isolated territories: in the Dnieper basin; in the Don basin; in the northern Urals and in the upper reaches of the Yenisei along the Azas river. The total number of beavers did not exceed 900 heads. Beaver hunting was banned in 1922. In 1923, a hunting reserve was organised in the Voronezh region along the Usman river, which in 1927 was transformed into the Voronezh State Reserve. At the same time, two more such reserves were created: Berezinsky and Kondo-Sosvinsky. 1927 also the first attempts to reintroduce beavers in other areas. As a result, by the end of the 1960s, the beaver's range in the Soviet Union was almost as large as in the 17th century. The beavers’ growing numbers made commercial capture possible again. In 2016, there were an estimated 661,000 beavers in Russia; in 2019, the estimate was 774,600. In the lands that made up the Soviet Union, almost 17,000 beavers were translocated from 1927 to 2004. Some 5,000 of these went to Ukraine, Belarus, the

Baltic States The Baltic states, et, Balti riigid or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term, which currently is used to group three countries: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, ...

and Kazakhstan. In Greece, the Eurasian beaver was present in the Last Glacial Period; remains have been found in Epirus. Beaver remains from the Neolithic have been found in coastal Evros and

Argura Ἄργισσα, Ἆργουσσα , alternate_name = , image = , imagealttext = , caption = , map_type = Greece , coordinates = , location = Gremnos Magoula, near Larissa , region = Pelasgiotis , type = Settlement , part_of = , l ...

; from the Neolithic to Bronze Age transition period in the Ptolemaida basin and in Sitagroi; and beaver remains from the

Early Helladic II The Korakou culture or Early Helladic II (in some schemes Early Helladic IIA) was an early phase of Bronze Age Greece, in the Early Helladic period, lasting from around 2650 to c.2200 BC. In the Helladic chronology it was preceded by the Eut ...

have been found in northeastern Peloponnese. In the

4th century BC The 4th century BC started the first day of 400 BC and ended the last day of 301 BC. It is considered part of the Classical era, epoch, or historical period. This century marked the height of Classical Greek civilization in all of its aspects ...

, Aristotle described this species under the name λάταξ/ (latax). He wrote that it is wider than the otter, with strong teeth, and at night it often uses these teeth to cut down trees on riverbanks. Ιt's not clear when beavers vanished from Kastoria (which may have been named after the beaver – κάστορας in Greek), but as late as the 18th century they were still hunted for fur. Buffon wrote that they were very rare in Greece at that time. In the 19th century, beavers could still be found in the Alfeios river and in Mesolongi. In Bulgaria, fossil, subfossil and subrecent remains have been found in 43 localities along 28 lowland rivers, from Struma and Maritsa in the south till the Danube in the north, while the last finds from Nicopolis ad Istrum date to the 1750–1850 period. In 2021, the Eurasian beaver was confirmed to have returned to Bulgaria. In Serbia, beavers were mostly extinct by the 1870s, with the last specimens being seen around 1900–1902. In 2004, 31 beavers were reintroduced in the Zasavica reserve by the Biology Faculty of the Belgrade University in collaboration with the Bavarian Science Society, and 45 beavers were released in the Obedska bara reserve. They spread quickly. By 2020, they had spread north, west and east, inhabiting rivers in the Sava- Danube system ( Drina, Jadar, Great Morava, Tamnava, Tisza, Bega, Timiș, the canal system in Vojvodina), they were found in the capital

Belgrade Belgrade ( , ;, ; Names of European cities in different languages: B, names in other languages) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers a ...

, and had spread to neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Italy, beavers returned in 2018 after an absence of almost 500 years, when they were spotted in the

Friuli-Venezia Giulia (man), it, Friulana (woman), it, Giuliano (man), it, Giuliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_t ...

region. The beaver resurgence in Eurasia has brought an increase in human-beaver encounters. In May 2013, a Belarusian fisherman who "tried to grab" a beaver died after it bit him several times, severing an artery in his leg, which caused him to bleed to death.

The Nordics

In Denmark, the beaver appears to have gone extinct 2,000–2,500 years ago, though a small population might have survived into the 1st millennium AD. In 1999, 18 beavers were reintroduced to the river Flynder in Klosterhede Plantage state forest in west-central Jutland, brought from the Elbe river in Germany. At Arresø in northern Zealand, 23 beavers were reintroduced between 2009 and 2011. By 2019, it was estimated that the Jutland population had increased to 240–270 individuals, and had spread far, from Hanstholm in the north to Varde and Kolding in the south. The population in northern Zealand, which had yet to significantly expand its geographic range, had increased to 50–60 individuals in 2019. In Norway, there was still a beaver population in the early 1900s, one of the few surviving in Europe at that time. Following protection, the Norwegian range of the species has expanded. The surviving population was in southern Norway; beavers were reintroduced to central Norway's Ingdalselva River watershed on the Agdenes peninsula in

Sør-Trøndelag Sør-Trøndelag () was a county comprising the southern portion of the present-day Trøndelag county in Norway. It bordered the old Nord-Trøndelag county as well as the counties of Møre og Romsdal, Oppland, and Hedmark. To the west is the No ...

in 1968–1969. The area is hilly to mountainous, with many small watersheds. Rivers are often too steep for beavers, so their habitat is scattered, and there's often only room for one territory in a habitat patch. The beavers spread slowly from watershed to watershed in the hilly terrain. Some spread could only be plausibly explained by assuming travel through sheltered sea water in fjords. In

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

, the Eurasian beaver had been hunted to extinction around 1870. Between 1922 and 1939, some 80 individuals were imported from Norway and introduced to 19 sites in Sweden. In 1995, the Swedish beaver population was estimated at 100,000. In Finland, there are some Eurasian beavers that have been re-introduced or spread from Sweden, but most of the Finnish population is a released North American beaver population. This population is controlled to prevent it from spreading into areas inhabited by the Eurasian beaver.

British Isles

The Eurasian beaver was well-established in Great Britain, but was driven extinct there by humans in the 16th century, with the last known historical reference in England in 1526. It is unclear whether beavers ever existed in Ireland. In the early 21st century, the beaver became the first mammal to be successfully reintroduced in the United Kingdom, after unofficial and official reintroductions to Scotland and England. In Scotland, free-living beaver populations occur around the

River Tay The River Tay ( gd, Tatha, ; probably from the conjectured Brythonic ''Tausa'', possibly meaning 'silent one' or 'strong one' or, simply, 'flowing') is the longest river in Scotland and the seventh-longest in Great Britain. The Tay originates ...

and Knapdale areas. The Knapdale population, sourced from Norway, was released by the Scottish Wildlife Trust and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, while the other populations are of unknown origin. Sixteen beavers were released between 2009 and 2014 in Knapdale forest, Argyll. A 2009 release of three beaver families of 11 individuals was the start of the Scottish Beaver Trial, a five-year research project to assess the effects of beaver reintroduction. Over the course of the trial, 16 individual beavers were released in total, with the goal of establishing four breeding pairs. 14 beaver kits were born; by the end of the trial in 2014, eight of the reintroduced beavers had survived and one or two of the wild-born beavers were estimated to be alive in the Knapdale area. In 2016, the Scottish government declared that the beaver populations in Knapdale and Tayside could remain and naturally expand. Beaver translocations now occur throughout many catchments in Scotland. In England, wild beavers are now present in all nine regions, with a population exceeding 1,000 (2024 estimate). Most sites are recent authorised introductions in large enclosures, but there are established completely free-living populations in the South-West. A population of unknown origin has been present on the River Otter, Devon since 2008. An additional pair was released to increase genetic diversity in 2016. As part of a scientific study, a pair of Eurasian beaver was released in 2011 into a three-hectare fenced enclosure near Dartmoor in southern Devon. The 13 beaver ponds now in place impacted flooding to the extent of releasing precipitation over days to weeks instead of hours. In 2019, a beaver pair was reintroduced in

East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...

for the first time. A four-hectare beaver enclosure on a farm in North Essex is part of a flood risk reduction project designed to reduce property flooding. The impact on flooding, wildlife and rural tourism is monitored by a private landowner. The places in England where beavers now live include the following (date first present): * South West England: Cornwall (2023); Devon (2008); Dorset (2021); Gloucestershire (2019); Somerset (2023); Wiltshire (2023); * South East England: Hampshire (2023); Kent (2003);

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

(2021); West Sussex (2020); *

Greater London Greater may refer to: *Greatness, the state of being great *Greater than, in inequality (mathematics), inequality *Greater (film), ''Greater'' (film), a 2016 American film *Greater (flamingo), the oldest flamingo on record *Greater (song), "Greate ...

: (2022); *

East Midlands The East Midlands is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. It comprises the eastern half of the area traditionally known as the Midlands. It consists of Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Li ...

: Derbyshire (2021); Nottinghamshire (2021); * West Midlands:

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...

(2023); West Midlands (2024); Worcestershire (2023); *

East of England The East of England is one of the nine official regions of England. This region was created in 1994 and was adopted for statistics purposes from 1999. It includes the ceremonial counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire ...

: Essex (2019); Norfolk (2021);

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

(2024); *

North West England North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, administrative counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

(2020); Cumbria (2020); * Yorkshire and the Humber: North Lincolnshire (2023); North Yorkshire (2019); * North-East England: Northumberland (2023). In 2022, beavers became legally protected in England and Wales, "making it illegal to capture, kill, injure or disturb them." In Wales a family of beavers has lived since 2021 in the Cors Dyfi nature reserve in Powys.

Asia

Fossils of ''C. fiber'' have been discovered in the famous Denisova Cave. In Iraq, Iran,

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

, and Turkey, subfossil evidence of beavers extends down to the floodplains of the Tigris-

Euphrates The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers'') ...

basin, and a carved stone stela dating between 1,000 and 800 BC in the Tell Halaf archaeological site along the Khabur River in northeastern Syria depicts a beaver. Although accounts of 19th-century European visitors to the Middle East appear to confuse beavers with otters, a 20th-century report of beavers by

Hans Kummerlöwe Richard Arthur Hans Kummerlöwe (5 September 1903 in Leipzig – 11 August 1995 in Munich, Münich), with the spelling changed to Kumerloeve from 1948 was a German ornithologist who served as an Schutzstaffel, SS Officer during the World War II, Se ...

in the

Ceyhan River The Ceyhan River (historically Pyramos or Pyramus ( el, Πύραμος), Leucosyrus ( el, Λευκόσυρος) or Jihun) is a river in Anatolia in the south of Turkey. Course of the river The Ceyhan River (Pyramus) has its source (known as ' ...

drainage of southern Turkey includes the diagnostic red incisor teeth, flat, scaly tail, and presence of gnawed willow stems. According to the '' Encyclopaedia Iranica'', early Iranian

Avestan Avestan (), or historically Zend, is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages: Old Avestan (spoken in the 2nd millennium BCE) and Younger Avestan (spoken in the 1st millennium BCE). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scrip ...

and

Pahlavi Pahlavi may refer to: Iranian royalty *Seven Parthian clans, ruling Parthian families during the Sasanian Empire *Pahlavi dynasty, the ruling house of Imperial State of Persia/Iran from 1925 until 1979 **Reza Shah, Reza Shah Pahlavi (1878–1944 ...

, and later Islamic literature, all had different words for otter and beaver, and castoreum was highly valued in the region. Johannes Ludwijk Schlimmer, a noted Dutch physician in 19th-century Iran, reported small numbers of beavers below the confluence of the Tigris and the Euphrates, along the bank of the

Shatt al-Arab The Shatt al-Arab ( ar, شط العرب, lit=River of the Arabs; fa, اروندرود, Arvand Rud, lit=Swift River) is a river of some in length that is formed at the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in the town of al-Qurnah in ...

in the provinces of Shushtar and Dezful. Austen Layard reported finding beavers during his visit to the Kabur River in Syria in the 1850s, but noted they were being rapidly hunted for said castoreum to extirpation. Beavers were specifically sacred to Zoroastrianism (which also revered otters), and there were laws against killing these animals. In China, a few hundred beavers live in the basin of the Ulungur River near the international border with Mongolia. The Bulgan Beaver Nature Reserve (; ) was established in 1980 to protect the creatures.

Fossil record

Fossils found in the Spanish region around Atapuerca show that the Eurasian beaver was present in the

Early Pleistocene The Early Pleistocene is an unofficial sub-epoch in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, being the earliest division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. It is currently estimated to span the time ...

but not in the Middle Pleistocene despite apparently favourable environmental conditions. It reappeared in the region during the

Late Pleistocene The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as Upper Pleistocene from a Stratigraphy, stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division of ...

and Holocene.

Conservation

The Eurasian beaver ''Castor fiber'' was once widespread in Europe and Asia but by the beginning of the 20th century both the numbers and range of the species had been drastically diminished, mainly due to hunting. At this time, the global population was estimated to be around 1,200 individuals, living in eight separate sub-populations. Conservation of the Eurasian beaver began in 1923 in the Soviet Union, with the establishment of the

Voronezh Nature Reserve (Also: "Voronezhky") , iucn_category = ia , photo = File:Usmanka River, Voronezh Nature Reserve.jpg , photo_caption = Usmanka River, Voronezh Nature Reserve , photo_width=300 , map = Russia , relief = yes , map_caption = Location of Reserve , ...

. From 1934 to 1977, approximately 3,000 Eurasian beavers from Voronezh were reintroduced to 52 regions from Poland to Mongolia. In 2008, the Eurasian beaver was categorized as least concern on the IUCN Red List, as the global population had recovered sufficiently with the help of global conservation programmes. Currently, the largest population resides in Europe, where it was reintroduced in 25 countries and conservation efforts are ongoing. However, populations in Asia remain small and fragmented, and are under considerable threat.

References

External links

{{Authority control Beavers Mammals described in 1758 Rodents of Asia Rodents of Europe Mammals of Mongolia Mammals of Russia Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Habitats Directive species