Thread: Tree bark peeled off question

I have sent some pics to the smartest bushman I know (not me)
Will see what he says

Thanks Twoshotkill I wait with anticipation

Here is the reply I got
Please note I have changed the names incase he doesn't want his name put on here

Hi TWOSHOT, Sorry to be so tardy to get back to you but we have been on a bit of a deadline to put the deer cullers magazine to bed. Deadline is 15th Sept.



Deer do eat bark and so do goats. Bark eating seems prevalent in late winter early spring and I believe they are after the inner bark the cambium inner bark because it carries a lot of sugars and nutrients at that time of the year.



The possums you will see will go on the willows at this time of year when they are in bud and they strip the bark off the top metre of the new branches and eat the cambium layer.



One of the tree that gets really chewed by goats and deer is the Puka. If I have identified it correctly it is a puka the hunter is holding up in the NZHS thread "Tree bark peeled off Question" I looked at today. In areas where lots of goats camped nearby, or have high deer populations every puka is barked in the area



A deer often stands on its back legs when they are bark feeding and a stag can reach a long way up a tree, so can a goat. I have found deer dead, hanging from a foreleg where the deer has caught its front foot in a fork and snapped its foreleg. The bone then locks across the fork and the animal cannot free itself.



A kaka will strip bark looking for insects but mainly up near the top of the tree.



Why do they do it Twoshot?. I don't know but I am sure it is part of the food cycle that they rely on for good health. Why do the deer hunt out the only tanekaha or celery pine in thousands of hectares of tussock to polish their antlers on. I mean to say how does the stag know that this is the tree that will give his antlers that perfect red brown stain. They cant see themselves so how do they know this. I expect, as with the bark they a instinctively driven to do this.

xxxxxxxxxx

Good info.
Love the kisses at the end twoshot

They were for you missus not you!!!

Originally Posted by Twoshotkill

They were for you missus not you!!!

Oh what! Gutted, thought our relationship was really progressing?
Settle for a beer tomorrow instead??

Some of the places stripped a deers head simply wiuldnt fit, and some was so high it surely couldn't reach without leaving substantial sign around the base of the tree if they were able to reach that high at all ie 4 plus meters high

I'm not convinced it was deer. What ever done it needed to climb the tree

A red deer on its hind legs would get to that height.

I have shot a goat up a tree
I had shot a billy and then noticed two nannys up a tree. As in well up. Still got me Buggered as to how they got up but they did.

Sent from my GT-S5360T using Tapatalk 2

Yea mate google goats in trees they are awesome

Hmmmm....

Wallaby!

Kaka will peel the bark off trees to allow insects in to colonise on the exposed timber. They then come back later for a feed of insects! Suspect you dont have kaka in your area though

The ex culler is correct. Spring sees high sap flow up from the roots which have stored sugars and vitamin c. Pregnant animals will look for this, even on youngish pines. Top terminal cambiym stripping on pines are usually possum and this can also coincide with pollen production which possum are also partial to. Its bad news in pine plantations because it can kill the main leader and cause the tree to grow valueless multileader stems. Ie, no straight high value sawlog. One territorial buck jacko can do a wealth of economic damage.

Another pic from yesterday...