Anyone see anything like this? Nature report.

[DDS]

So I was at my grandparents today who live in the Clinton area. Went walking in the woods and saw something we have never seen before and wondering if others have seen this or maybe can confirm our thoughts as to what it is. 

 

These trees are shredded all over their woods, tend to only be on one side, and the damage goes from base of the tree all the way to the top of each of the trees. When I say top of the tree we are talking anything between 20-80’ high mostly mature trees. It’s really incredible. The other observation is all the trees are ash trees that have ash bore. We are thinking it’s the local black bear in the area climbing the trees and eating the ash bore. The deepest cuts are around the ash bore holes. The ash bore holes can be seen in the close up pictures where the dark marks are. The only thing that would say not bear is you can’t find distinct claw marks, just the bark is pulled off by something. These are not just a few trees, probably 10-15 on 20 acres. 

 

Anyone seen anything like this, can you confirm it is a bear or do you think it’s something else that we haven’t thought of? 

 

 

[Swamprat]

Weird.  Maybe a migration of woodpeckers came in.  Looking for grubs. Maybe contact fish&game. 

[Kype]

i have a lot of ash trees around me and i have never seen that. i have no clue. 

[DDS]

I thought wood peckers at first too but there are no deep holes  in the tree. Just the surface of the bark stripped off and the small holes the ash bore live in. 

[Woodsman416]

Woodpeckers and nuthatches eat emerald ash borers.

[Hunter115522]

Climbing tree stand?

[Mink]

Porcupines !

[Bucksnbows]

That is what we in the natural resources restoration business call “ash tree skeletons”. That is 100% die off from the emerald ash borer beetles. Get used to seeing it. Ash borers are now everywhere in NJ.


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[DDS]

No climbers allowed on the property.

[DDS]

So to update this I have been digging deeper and looked into woodpecker damage to ash trees. These pictures are defiantly of woodpecker damage not bear like we thought. 

Its called bark flecking, they apparently do it to highly infected ash trees to get to the ash bore under the bark surface. So they only knock off the outside layer of bark.

glad to see something is eating them though, if only they did sooner. 

[Rusty]

In an attempt to make lemonade out of lemons, you now have a supply of firewood and the openings in the canopy will let in sunlight to generate new growth on the forest floor. 

[Batsto]

Bugs! It's all Trump's fault. 

[Bucksnbows]

So to update this I have been digging deeper and looked into woodpecker damage to ash trees. These pictures are defiantly of woodpecker damage not bear like we thought. 
Its called bark flecking, they apparently do it to highly infected ash trees to get to the ash bore under the bark surface. So they only knock off the outside layer of bark.
glad to see something is eating them though, if only they did sooner. 

Like I said, we call that look the ash tree skeleton because those trees are either already dead or in their final year of life due to the beetles. It makes the trees look like they have “bones” when the woodpeckers do that.


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[YurytheRed]

Nature can be a freak show..

[Grassmans]

Looks like bugs !!