The surprising series of animals that lived in our country continues with the European beaver or brebul, as the Romanian Peasant has always called it. This large rodent lived along all the rivers in the Roman lands. We also have in the case of BREB a series of evidences cantoned in the toponymy and Romanian history. Besides the multitude of villages with the name of Brebu, Brebeni, tail of Brebenel, Brebena, Brebena, we also have the name of a series of ponds and swamps such as Brebul Balta or Brabul in Dolj County. Unlike the North American beavers, which are social, the Beavers were solitary animals, always quartered near lakes, ponds, and streams. The only cause of the disappearance was hunting for meat, which was especially appreciated, being used in the preparation of special sausages whose exact recipe was lost in the mists of time. From the teeth of breb peasants make a talisman that they hung around the neck of children. The Romans had ancient knowledge about the Beavers ' habit of knocking down trees and making water dams, as evidenced by the popular riddle collected by an ethnologist at the end of the XIX century, when brebul was already extinct:
"The Nigraseni Valley,
Tartorul gherlani
A whole lock knocks down
To make a grist mill.”
Brews disappear one at a time throughout Europe. In England since 1188, in Scotland in 1520, in France 1820, in Switzerland in 1841, Lithuania in 1877. Around 1900, the bream disappeared from the Caucasus, Altai and Siberian Mountains. The last breb from the Romanian countries disappeared in 1823 from the Moldavia-Veche area, Caras-Severin County. Brebul was reintroduced in Romania in 1998, as a result of a program started by the minister of Environment at that time. There were brought 21 Beavers from Bavaria, being released in nature in the area of the confluence between the Black River and the estelnic Creek in Brasov County. Currently there are about 350 brebi living in our country along the rivers Olt, Mures and Ialomita. Unfortunately, the success story of BREB reintroduction has not been replayed in the case of other extinct species.
