I have a couple beech trees that have all the bark missing where the trunk meets the ground. The damage goes all the way around. Is this rodent damage or something else? Will they live like this? Thinking they have to go.

Looks like our Porky damage. Once the bark is girdled completely around, that tree is toast. Porkies chew as high as they can reach standing. They like Beech nut here also. What is that saw dust from? That damage looks old. A tree needs the lifeline of the bark to survive which supplies nutrients and healing like our veins and arteries do for our bodies. Trees can survive and heal themselves with some bark damage, too much damage it is over.

Best turn them trees into firewood, Aint no saving them!

Bob nailed it. Looks like a porky and that tree is a goner.

Porkies around my camp really prefer beech trees, I see signs of them chewing on beech more than any other specie.

In winter they will nip the ends off hemlock branches.

That tree is dead!

I agree with every thing said!!!!.....jk

Haven't seen porkies this far south in Michigan. There are no tooth marks. Found another tree beech with a baseball size spot of missing bark. Sawdust is from tree removal that I'm doing now. Getting ready to put in chestnuts is the spring.

OK our beech here go some kind of disease 15-20 years ago that kills them half way up. They break in half and the top falls of the stump remaining is dead and decays soon after. Now most of what we have is young beech brush filling up the void. Are they ore resistant we will find out in another 10 or so years......jk

X2

Looks several months old. Any bark chunks under the fallen leaves? Looks like a pivot or turn tree from logging. But I agree with porkie damage.

If it is rodent ie meadow voles then there is always small frasse around, porky's will have what looks like a bear dump and only every other day

I've seen skidding damage do a number on slippey bark, but usually just on one side of the tree (although I've seen worse case scenarios)

yeah, that one's toast...two years ago.

we have porky's in wv now so they are moving south

kind of goes against the whole "climate change" migration theories...

When I see vertical incisor teeth scrapes on trees around here, it is spring black bear damage from them eating the cambium layer.

beech bark rot, is bad in the eastern U,P, , kill almost all the beech trees,

Oh, I thought I saw teeth marks, if it was a porky you'd definitely see teeth marks.

Sure looks like Decay Fungus to me- it you have other beech trees- it might be easier to identify it in the earlier stages- I'm not thinking it's porkie damage.

If it was a porcupine you would likely see droppings close by-- look for some that resemble the old root beer barrel candy ....... I see you are in West Michigan like I am. I have seen porcupine as far south as the Rothbury area........

I have never seen a porkie work on a tree that large at ground level. But I do not have beech trees or eastern porkies. It looks like a disease to me.