Posted by jan thomas on July 3, 2006

Q: I have 5 locust trees in my farmyard that the bark is being stripped off. The bark is laying in shreds under the trees. Every morning there is more off. It is being done in patches on the tree and whatever it is has some of the smaller branches all the way around. The lowest patch is about 5 feet off the ground and the highest is about 20 feet up. It looks like the pictures I have seen of what porcupines do. However the DNR say there are no porcupines in north central Iowa. What else could be doing this?

State: Iowa

A: From your description, it sounds to me that you're on the right track. It really does sound like Porcupine work. Porcupines will remove the outer bark of a tree so they can feed on the cambium (this is the actively growing part) of the tree. I'd look closely at the tree where the bark has been removed to see if you can see any tooth marks. If you do see tooth marks on the tree, I'd certainly figure it was Porcupine - I can't think of anything else that would do this. If you have a cluster of trees nearby, your mystery animal, if it is a Porcupine, may be there during daylight hanging up in a tree and you might be able to spot it to make a positive ID.

I realize Iowa is not "supposed" to have any Porcupines, but your neighboring state of Nebraska does and I see no reason why there couldn't be a few moving eastward. Good luck on figuring this out and I'd love for you to get back to me if you do make an identification. Thanks for writing.

John Wiessinger ( July 4, 2006)