Was walking through the woods yesterday afternoon and found several trees which had the bark completely removed from ground level to about 7 feet up.
The trees were live (for the time being) and ash and elm. There were very few marks on the wood. There was very little debris left around the base of the tree.

Any idea what would cause this? My first thought would be porcupine, but I have never seen or heard of one in the area, Sheboygan county, Wisconsin.

If I remember, I'll take some pics tomorrow when I am back at the property.

If the snow was deep this winter it could be mice, but if it was several trees I would say a porcupine.

It sure wasn't 7 feet deep. Maybe a couple feet.

Is it the ash bore, they sure do a number on the bark?

Ya got elk?

I have never seen that type of damage from the borer, and we have lost all of our ash trees on that property. Typically the borer bark damage I see is little patches that slowly get bigger. This is the entire tree stripped.

I have some ash trees that the borer damage is from the ground to the top 40 ft. trees, heavy damage.

I'll have to take some pics.

There were some, but not many, bug tracks visible. Nothing like the ash I have been cutting up that are covered in bug tracks under the bark.

yes we do now have elk in parts of the state a lady shot 2 buy mistake during deer season
that looks like antler rub

Could very well be Elk,the height you are saying.

After seeing the picture they very well could be Elk.

Elk usually pick a single tree for antler rubs. I have seen many trees exactly like that when moose chewed the bark off but they leave shallow grooves from the teeth. I don’t see any damage at ground level??? Do you have moose in WI?

Also when a bull elk rubs a tree, the damage starts @ about four feet and goes up to about five and a half feet. I’ve seen literally hundreds of elk rubs and they don’t look like that.

Could be porcupine-if it is you should be able to see the tooth marks.

We get a few inches of snow here a 10 foot plus drifts in our tree belts.

I don’t have your tree species but there are a few critters known for peeling trees here: Porcupine peel a lot of spruce here, but they don’t usually get 7’ high. If they do it when the bark is soft (spring-summer) it peels pretty clean. Moose will peel deciduous trees if they get hungry in the winter. They generally leave teeth marks though. Other deer species might too. I’ve been told that black bears will peel trees to eat under bark if they’re short of other forage. I’ve never witnessed it though.

Looks porcupinish to me. I have seen a lot of elk gnaws, but none looking like those.

Porcupine, If I had taken picture from my property yesterday it would match. They girdled some oaks. Hate them things!!!

Where are Snow's pics to which y'all are referring?

porky