What critter would do this?

[eclecticcottage]

This is maple (Norway) that we had cut at the Old House late last season. Brought it out to the cottage, dumped it and left it for the winter. Now we see this has been happening over winter. Ideas on what's debarking our stack for us??

 

[Chimney Smoke]

Squirrels, chipmunks, mice, moles...

 

[eclecticcottage]

Never had anything go after bark like that. We've got some spruce and pine nearby and oodles of splits and small branch sized rounds and none have ever been touched. Does something like maple in particular? I know when we had a huge (60-70 trees) stack of pine we had some red squirrels hanging around. Once it was split and on the racks, they left.

 

[Squirrel]

I'm guessing voles. Some years their population explodes and in winter they forage under the snow and eat bark, living or dead. Last year they killed about 1/2 an acre of young trees beside my place by eating all the bark about 6" up.

 

[firefighterjake]

Mice . . . or a chupacabra maybe? My money is on mice . . . see this with wood on the ground left over the winter under the snow.

 

[Dune]

Rabbits also love fruit tree bark. I consider maple among the fruit trees since it has edible parts. I used to raise rabbits and gave them apple tree prunings. They chewed the bark right off.

 

[bholler]

porcupines would be my guess

 

[BrotherBart]

Either tree squirrels or porcupines.

 

[Applesister]

I associate missing bark with really heavy snow cover. When the ground is covered from first snowfall to late spring melt.
I just picked up some deer bones. Whatever doesn't hibernate in the winter. If mice can eat the shed antlers of deer, then they and all their little frennies can eat everything else. I did catch deer up on their hind legs reaching for leaf buds. I also saw them eating bark. I always thought it was rabbits, though.
Rats, meadow voles, field mice, rabbits, deer...

Apple tree limbs below the snow line.

 

[Applesister]

Deer were eating the bark off the trees there.

It was a bad winter for animals.

 

[Jags]

I have had rabbits strip rose plants as well as black raspberry plants. I could see them doing this on fruit wood as well.

 

[DougA]

We get exactly the same as the OP photos and it's almost always deer.