The idea that the elk (Alces Alces alces) that we usually associate with the endless expanses of Forest in Siberia and Alaska, lived with us, seems at least fanciful. The truth is quite different. Elk is the largest representative of deer.
An adult male of the European subspecies can reach a height of 2 meters at the shoulder, as well as a weight sometimes exceeding 500 kg. Moose was known and hunted by our ancestors. The Romans called it plotun, a name that disappeared with the impressive herbivore. Linguistic, historical and toponymic evidence about plotun abounds in Romanian folklore and civilization. It is enough to mention here The Ballad"Voda capitan Matei".
"Hunting the shaggy bison,
Towering, branchy deer,
And plotunii lopatosi...".
The work Geografia au universal description of the Earth written between 1593-1594 by Giovanni Antonio Magini, includes a detailed description of the Roman countries, showing that Transylvania has large forests and endless forests, where they live between other animals, and elk. The illustrious Moldovan ruler Dimitrie Cantemir refers in Descriptio Moldaviae to the plotuns that appeared in winter on the banks of the Nistru River, probably coming from Poland.
After 1800 no one mentions plotun in the fauna of the Romanian countries, considering it extinct. In the twentieth century, however, the plot reappears sporadically in Romania. Thus the first resigned plotun on Romanian soil was a male photographed in 1964 on the Letea River in the Danube Delta. Scanteia newspaper of January 14, 1970 announces the appearance of a plotun in the Frasinul forest in Suceava County.
In the Husi forest detour appears a couple of Elk. In November 1971, a female and her cub are reported in Borcea Island. Another specimen was shot in the same year in Neamt County. In 1977, a pair is observed in Botosani County. The year 1978 brings a case of poaching by which the last plotun in Romania is killed . The ecological crime was committed in the Yellow hunting fund, located at the northern border between Vrancea and Bacau counties.
