Beaver don't tend to return to a tree. If they get spooked off it, they go start on another later..

Looks like that beaver is long gone I’d be moving on from damage that old and not even recognize able you might be chasing a ghost.

Not beaver damage. Ive seen that here in places where there are horss, goats or sheep.

Another vote for porcupines.

Those who thought beaver appear to be correct. 300 yards away from the first damage, I found more. Its chewing every hackberry. My wife named it Earl, because Earl has to die.

Looks to be big too, anytime I see bark ripped upward like that it's usually piggy.

well go get it,

I'm working on that. I don't have traps big enough to work well on beaver (duke 550 & 650), and I really don't want to spend much getting beaver traps because I may never use them again.

I think I'll pick up a dozen snares Scheels. That seems like the best way to go.

What ever that beaver/beavers got into, removing it/them may only be good till spring. Whenther this year or next, or year after, you will get more. Especially if there are more hackberrys, willow , cat tails, lily pads, or combinations of them

Another vote for porcupine from me.

I hear ya, but still:
I've owned the property 4 years and this is the first time we've seen beaver. There is some very old beaver damage (I found 2 chewed trees), and an acre or two of trees in the creek bottom are long dead. The state forester said he thought they were drowned decades ago. Put all that together and I think a beaver dammed up the creek long ago and killed the trees, and mostly (hopefully) have not been around since.

so I'm hoping this does not become an annual event. But I agree it will most likely be a recurring problem.

When I bought it, the property was about 90-95% osage orange with the balance being eastern red cedar (dozens), hackberry (dozens), cottonwood (1 or 2), willow (3-4), and mullbery (5-8). So there are other hackberries but there might not be many close to water. So far it has left the willows alone.

I'm planning on putting a snare at every spot that looks like where it might leave the creek. And I'll make some caster mounds too. Its a small (maybe 1/8th acre) pond then a few hundred yards of creek upstreem of the pond. The creek starts at 4+ feet deep and a few hundred yards upstream is down to a trickle through a thick patch of reeds.

We'll see...