European beaver
TheEuropean beaver (Castor fiber) is the largest rodent native to Eurasia. It can weighs up to 30 kg. It lives in lakes, swamps, streams and rivers, where water and vegetable food are available all year round. It's head-and-body length is 70–100 cm and the flattened tail measures 30-40 cm in length and 12-16 cm in width. Beaver's last legs have webbing between their toes. It has typical long orange-brown incisors. The beaver mostly feeds on herbs, aquatic plants, trees and bushes, eating shoots, leaves and bark. Most obvious traces of its presence are gnawed or felled trees.
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Beaver is a monogamous animal. It usually lives in small family communities, formed by 2-14 specimens. It is very territorial; he marks his territory with secretions of anal glands. Beaver digs a den in the bank. The entrance into it opens below the waterline. Where there is no adequate basis whitch allows digging the den, beaver builds a lodge, where the nest is hidden under a pile of branches and trunks, thickened with mud. The beaver also builds dams to assure himself a permanent water level. Under water it can withstand up to 15 minutes. Beaver is a keystone species helping support the ecosystem of which they are a part. It creates wetlands, which increase biodiversity and provide habitat for many rare species.
Threats
The beaver's historic decline was caused by over-hunting for fur, meat and castoreum (a secretion from the scent glands), combined with loss of wetland habitats. In Slovenia until recently beaver was considered as extinct. Beavers were reintroduced to Slovenia as a result of colonization in Croatia in 1998. They have already colonized the river Drava, Mura, Sava and Kolpa. Nowadays the beaver is under the threat from sudden changes in water level fluctuations caused by hydropower regulation, run over and hydroelectric turbines.
