Who did this?

[Coventry Lee]

I went for a walk in some local woodland today and saw three or four trees in the same area with similar damage. I'm know there are Muntjac in neighbouring woodland so that was my first thought. Most of the damage stopped at about two or three feet off the ground, but there was a tree in the group on which the damage was a lot higher (seen in the bottom photograph), which made me wonder if squirrels could be behind it.

If anyone can help, then please do!

[artdemole]

Deer with antlers may be rubbing bark from trees.But not that high up.

[Coventry Lee]

It's the height which has confused me. I felt sure it was Muntjac (which according to regular users is the only deer species present) when I first saw the damage lower down.

[muldonach]

Muntjac will not reach as high as 3 feet and would not use trees as thick as that for fraying - nor does the damage look like small deer fraying.

Not typical of roe either.

Looks like some horizontal marks in the wood on the last shot - are they toolmarks?

Tbh it does not look like deer damage to me at all, fraying is normally long scores in the bark with intervening strips of bark left and is generally much greater in vertical extent than horizontal, but interested to hear what others think.

Cheers
mac

[Coventry Lee]

I have considered that the damage may have been caused by tools, but again the height of the damage in the last photograph made me think otherwise. I'm just over six foot tall and the damage higher up is a couple of feet higher than I am tall. It seems an extraordinary amount of effort to go to in order to vandalise a tree. I'm really have no idea what the cause of the damage is.

The only thing I feel sure of is that the damage hasn't occurred naturally. It looks 'forced'. There are other trees in the woods with bark peeling off in what appears to be a natural manner. But this doesn't fit that description for me. It may have to remain a mystery. I intend to speak to the ranger there to see if he can help me.