Squirrel Damage: Stripped Bark and Clipped Twigs in Calgary Trees

Finding a scatter of freshly clipped green twigs under a tree, or a patch of trunk where the bark has been stripped to bare wood several metres up, is unsettling. There is no insect to find and no disease to name, and the damage appeared overnight.

Squirrels do both of those things. Most of the time the tree shrugs it off, but concentrated bark stripping on a young tree or a single branch can girdle it, and it is worth knowing when to intervene.

What Squirrel Bark Stripping Looks Like

The damage is usually a patch of bark removed from the upper trunk or a large branch, with clean edges and bare, often slightly gnawed wood exposed. It sits well above ground, unlike vole damage, and lacks the 45-degree clipped twigs of rabbit feeding.

You will often find strips of bark on the ground underneath. In late winter and early spring, when other food is scarce and sap is rising, squirrels strip bark to reach the sugary tissue underneath.

Clipped Twigs on the Lawn

The other common sign is a carpet of small twigs with clean angled cuts, often with leaves or buds still attached, dropped in quantity under the canopy. Squirrels clip these while feeding on buds or collecting nesting material.

It looks dramatic and is almost always harmless. A mature tree loses a trivial fraction of its canopy this way, and the tree responds by pushing new growth. The main cost is raking.

When It Is Actually a Problem

The real risk is girdling. If a squirrel strips bark all the way around a branch or a young trunk, everything above that ring dies, the same way it would with mower damage or vole feeding.

Young, thin-barked trees are the most vulnerable, and so is a tree that has a favourite squirrel route running through it. Repeated stripping on the same stem year after year adds up even when no single patch girdles it.

Protecting a Tree

For a young tree with a bare trunk, a smooth metal band around the trunk, well above the ground and not tight against a growing stem, prevents climbing. It only works if the squirrel cannot reach the tree from a fence, a roof, or a neighbouring branch, which is often the catch.

Trimming branches that bridge to a roof or fence removes the highway. That has other benefits too, since branches touching a roof cause their own problems with shingles and rodents getting into attics.

Do Not Feed the Problem

Bird feeders, spilled seed, and fallen fruit concentrate squirrel activity in a small area, and a high local population puts more pressure on the trees around it. Moving a feeder away from a vulnerable young tree often reduces the damage more than any barrier.

Avoid taste repellents on bark unless the label specifically permits it, since some products damage the tissue you are trying to protect.

Caring for a Stripped Tree

Leave the wound alone. No paint, no sealant, no cutting back to tidy the edges. Water the tree deeply through the growing season, mulch the root zone, and give it the resources to compartmentalize the damage and grow callus over it.

If a young trunk has been stripped more than halfway around, or the damage is on the main stem below the canopy, have it assessed. Aardvark Tree Care can tell you whether the tree will grow past it or whether you are better off replacing it now.

Squirrel damage is usually cosmetic; the exception is a stripped ring, which kills everything above it.