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enter image description hereI live in the West Georgia area. We now have several trees chewed up beginning 5 feet off the ground and all the way around the tree, some to the very top. I found a birch that had a 4 foot section eaten out of the top about 20' feet up. Pines, oaks, sweet gums are affected so far and several people in Troup County have the same issue and no one has any answers except: squirrels, woodpeckers, bears.

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Joy Burnham
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  • Looks like beavers to me? –  Feb 19 '18 at 09:08
  • Woodchuck and porcupine damage both look similar on the surface to this and at 20 feet off the grounds I would normally think porcupine more to be more likely, but they should be rare at most in Georgia, so I would start with woodchuck. Look for holes/burrows in the area and sightings of woodchuck/groundhogs. – dlb Feb 23 '18 at 21:33
  • Welcome to TGO! Thanks for the details and close-up. Have you seen any footprints, or scat, in the vicinity? Could you add pictures of an entire tree or two, including the damaged part. Is the affected bark eaten all the way around? Is there bark on the ground? If so, is it scrapings or bigger pieces? Are the branches and leaves fine? Are these mostly scattered trees, or grouped together? In what period of time has it happened? I'm sorry to have overwhelmed you! The more we know, the better chance we can help! – Sue Saddest Farewell TGO GL Feb 27 '18 at 23:13
  • No footprints or scat because there are leaves on the ground. The wood chips are on the ground around the bottom of the tree. We have over 90 acres and the trees are all over our land. The damage has occured for over two months. The first tree was eaten all around and the others just one side. We have put up trail cameras but no luck picking the right area that would be hit next. I do believe the trees affected were diseased or dead when the animal stripped the bark and wood off. Hope that helps and thank you all for your remarks. – Joy Burnham Mar 01 '18 at 01:32
  • Show a wider picture too. It's rather hard to see what we're looking at in this single closeup. – Olin Lathrop Mar 05 '18 at 14:27
  • I did, see below. – Joy Burnham Mar 12 '18 at 12:58
  • Possible duplicate of What animal could strip all the bark off the lower 7 feet of this tree? – Olin Lathrop Mar 13 '18 at 12:28
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    @Liam: Clearly not beavers for a number of reasons. – Olin Lathrop Mar 13 '18 at 12:29
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    Voting to keep open, the marks on the trees look very different. – James Jenkins Jun 21 '18 at 18:03

1 Answers1

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Quick synopsis:

  1. Beetles infested tree. See circular holes.

  2. Woodpeckers made larger holes to get at the beetles.

  3. Tree died.

  4. Bark fell off, helped along by animals trying to get to the tasty beetle larva.

For more depth, see my answer to the question this is a duplicate of.

Olin Lathrop
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