tree damage

I found the bark stripped from this 5" sugar maple today. A two-foot area starting 5 feet up the trunk, three feet of untouched bark, then more stripping to near the top. This was a healthy tree with no insect damage or broken branches. Bark chips under the snow look fresh. I've never seen this kind of damage before. Do any of you know what caused it?

Porcupine

Looks like porcupine damage. Have seen one do that. Needs a lead pill or will keep at it with more trees. Look around for a hollow tree with a dung heap under it. Find it and you have found its home.

Oh ya, that is the cause of one big, bad, mambo jambo porcupine...

Have fun with him!!

They LOVE apples and apple tree bark, or at least they do around here in North ID..... NOT a welcome guest, but they are very rare up here.. Only ever seen one, alive.

We don't have porcupines around here as far as I know.

you do now.

Should be tracks on the ground to let you know
what went up the tree if not a very odd Woodpecker.

Sure looks like porcupines. Like was said below look for a tree with a lot of droppings around it and start searching the top. Be very mindful about bullet trajectory if going after them with any kind of rifle. If using a shotgun be prepared to hit the dang things more than once. They are tough. Be prepared to hit em more than once with a .22 also. If you catch one on the ground where you can shoot safely, a .44 mag or a 30/06 will settle their hash rather efficently. An axe works rather well also as long as you stay away from the quills.

This is what the Columbus Dispatch says. Until the early 1900s, porcupines were fairly common in northern Ohio. Development and deforestation drove them out, but recent evidence suggests they’re returning. A number of porcupine sightings have been recorded in northeastern Ohio, apparently of animals moving west from Pennsylvania.

Looks unanimous for porcupine. I'll be on the lookout. I haven't heard of any around here, but I don't get out much. Are they mostly nocturnal?

Porcupine spelled backwards spells, Enipucrop

I just found that article on line. I guess they're back. That tree is yds from a creek and less that 100 yds from some caves in picture. Lots of hollow trees, too.

TYPOS: 30 yds, less than 100 yds. Arthritic fingers.

Can tell you a story about porcupines.
They are tough, tough critters!
I bought my first piece of land in 1987. A 40, all woods.
I was enthralled with it.
Then I noticed something was eating all the bark off the tops of my oak trees. Killing them right and left.
I called the DNR and asked them about it and they said that while porcupines were somewhat protected in MN there was a huge over population of them that year and to just quietly do the SSS on a few of them.
So I took out several of them with my .38
One day I went up to my land and there was one in an oak tree right in the clearing I had made for a cabin.
But I had forgot to bring the .38
So I climbed up the tree - about 30' up and shook the porky out of the limb he was on.
He bounced about 5' when he hit the ground.
Then immediately climbed up another tree - before I could get back down the ground.
So I shinnied up that tree and shook him out of it and he bounced again and went right back up another tree - before I could get down.
So I climbed that tree and shook him out.
This time I almost got down before he could climb another as he was slowing down.
But so was I. He still beat me up the tree before I could get him.
I was about tuckered out from climbing but my adrenaline was pumping so I went on up and shook him out again.
This time I got back down before he could climb again and took him out with a club.
Whew.
I was completely worn out.
No way I could have climbed another tree.

Not nocturnal. Scan the tree tops any old time - day, night. They're not hard to see.

Dam, Jerry, why couldn't they have had YouTube in 1987? I'd have paid to see that.

I've never seen a porcupine chew bark like that and I have a lot of them around my place.
However, I can't imagine what else it could be.
They do like to climb up near the top of trees and chew off small branches. The branches look as if they had been hacked off with a hatchet.
Around here, their favorite is elm followed by wild pear and then wild apple.
My Dad had an Allis WD that had a small head gasket leak so he always used alcohol antifreeze.
He was afraid the "permanent" antifreeze might get in the cylinders and "set" it up.
He kept it in a shed and one winter a porcupine licked the whole side of the block clean where a little of the anti-freeze had leaked. He also chewed the rubber off the plug wires the hose to the air cleaner and some of the tread off the rear tires.
They are hard to kill unless you shoot them square in the head.