Yesterday when I was up at the Missouri river opening up our cabin for the summer I walked behind it and saw this tree that I thought had been hit by lighting but on looking closer it looked like it had the bark chewed off it like a beaver would but to a lot smaller extent and beaver don't climb twenty feet up in a tree. What I was thinking it might be from a porcupine which would be very unusual for this area however if I'm not mistaken, I think I saw where someone had turned one in over at Macy, NE. about 25 miles east of me and our cabin is 35 miles north of where I live. Any thoughts?

Porkys around here feed on softwood.

Looks like a porky to me. Any poop there? Looks like deer poop.

Looks like porcupine damage to me. We have tons of them in North Central PA and I see that sort of damage all the time. They seem to prefer beech trees, but will also chew cherries and just about any other tree if they’re hungry enough.

If you look closely you should be able to see the incisor marks on the tree where the bark has been removed.

Any teeth marks present? Picture is a bit fuzzy. Nice little crack in the tree so it could be disease if there's no chew marks.

Porky’s tend to eat newer tender growth towards the top. I have some doubts that is porcupine damage.

Well the picture doesn't show it but the debarking goes all the way to the top. Also you can see small incisor marks over the entire chewed part of the tree.

Looks like porcupine damage to me. But I’ve only seen them chewing on Pine.

Yeah, that’s a porky.

Looks like a porcupine.

Thanks, that's the only thing I could think of that might do something like that, guess I'll have to keep a closer eye when I let the dog out.

Interesting as around here you only see them feeding on softwood(evergreens) for trees

That’s why we call them Pine Pigs in these woods. I burnt powder on 7 this winter.

I’ve never seen them chew softwoods around my camp in North Central Pennsylvania. They do climb up into the hemlock trees and nip the tender end branches off. They do it year after year and eventually kill the trees. They killed at least three medium-size hemlocks in my camp yard over the last 10 years or so that way.

Like I said, above, their preferred tree seems to be beech, they hit them harder than any other species. Mostly they go for the smaller ones, but I’ve seen them girdle very large ones too, and kill them.

I had to put aluminum tubes 24 inches high around the beech trees I planted beside my driveway to keep them off of them.

Later on this spring when I'm out mushroom hunting I'll have to keep a eye out and see if I notice any more trees that look like that and the only conifer trees around here are Red Cedar no pine that's why I was surprised when I saw this.

porky

Interesting as there is alot of beech around here and I have never seen the porkys touch them.Just the evergreens which we have a ton of.In the summer time you see the porkys eating alot of clover also.

It’s interesting that animals of the same specie can have such big regional differences.