Pesky squirrels! Part 2!

There was a previous post about Squirrel damage, pesky varmints! This time, I caught them in the act.

Small sections of bark littered the path below a Sallow tree in the eastern part of the wood. As I stopped to look, more pieces of freshly cut bark fell around me. The squirrels were stripping the bark and biting it into manageable chunks before eating the soft inner lining called "Phloem".

Once the phloem had been scraped off and eaten, the bark was discarded.

The tree's food is generated by photosynthesis in the leaves and transported down to the roots through the Phloem. The squirrels love it as it is sweet and richly nutritious. Sadly, without the phloem layer, the tree cannot feed itself. The tree will divert resources away from the branches above the damaged area and those branches will die. 

These damaged areas stand out through the winter as the leaves are not shed. They turn brown but stay on the dead branches as a reminder of the damage.