Squirrels Chewing Your Tree in Richmond Hill?

You notice it from the kitchen window: a bare, pale stripe on a branch high in the maple, or a scatter of fresh green twigs across the lawn every morning. Then a grey or black squirrel runs along the fence and the mystery is solved. Richmond Hill has a lot of them, from the big old trees around Mill Pond to the younger streets in Jefferson and Westbrook.

Why Squirrels Chew Trees

Squirrels have three reasons to go after a tree, and each one leaves a different kind of mark.

Sap and Bark in Late Winter

From February into spring, food is scarce and the sap starts moving. Squirrels peel back the outer bark to lick the sweet layer underneath. Maples get it worst, especially sugar and red maples. You see long, pale strips on the upper branches and bits of bark on the ground below.

Twig Tips for Food

In spring and early summer they nip off the ends of branches to eat the buds, flowers or young seeds. The clipped tips land in a neat scatter, often with the leaves still fresh. Oaks, maples and spruce all get this treatment.

Nest Material

Squirrels build leafy nests, called dreys, in high forks. They strip soft bark and cut twigs to line them. One drey doesn’t hurt the tree. Several in the same tree mean a busy territory.

When It Matters

Most chewing is cosmetic. The tree seals small wounds and carries on. A few situations deserve a closer look.

• Bark stripped all the way around a limb. That ring cuts off the flow of sugar and water. The branch beyond it will die, sometimes the same season, sometimes the next.
• A dead limb over something you care about. Once a stripped branch dies, it dries out, gets brittle and can come down in a summer storm onto the roof, the car or the deck.
• Young trees. A thin-barked tree a few years old can lose a lot of its bark in one spring. If the main stem gets ringed, the top of the tree dies back.
• Repeated damage in the same tree. Wounds that open every year give decay fungi a way in.

Walk around the tree in late spring, once the leaves are out. A branch that stays bare, or leafs out thin and small, is usually the one that was ringed.

What Helps

You can’t keep squirrels out of a Richmond Hill backyard, but you can make the damage less costly.

• Take out the dead limbs. A branch killed by chewing won’t recover. Removing it before it dries out keeps it from dropping later.
• Keep branches off the roof. Squirrels use overhanging limbs as a bridge to the eaves, and from there into the attic. A gap of a couple of metres between the canopy and the roofline cuts off the route.
• Guard young trees. A loose wrap of hardware cloth around the trunk of a new tree slows them down. Leave room for the trunk to grow and check it each spring.
• Use a metal band on an isolated tree. A wide sheet-metal collar around the trunk works only if the squirrels can’t jump in from a fence, a roof or another tree. On most lots they can.
• Leave the feeders out of it. A bird feeder next to the tree brings more squirrels to that spot.

What Not to Do

Don’t paint or seal the chewed patches. Wound paint traps moisture and slows healing. Don’t climb into the tree to knock down a drey, and don’t use poison, which puts pets, birds and other wildlife at risk. Trapping rarely solves it, because a new squirrel takes over the territory within weeks.

Trees We See Hit Most in Richmond Hill

Older neighbourhoods like Mill Pond, Richvale and Crosby have big sugar and Norway maples, and those are the squirrels’ favourites. In Oak Ridges, the red oaks along the moraine get clipped twig tips every spring. Newer subdivisions in Jefferson and Rouge Woods have young street and backyard trees with thin bark, which is where ringing does the most harm.

A tall maple with a dozen bare stripes up top might look alarming from the ground. Usually most of those branches are fine. The job is finding the one or two that are already dead.

How We Handle It

Scott comes out, looks at the canopy with you and points out which branches have been ringed and which will heal. If a limb is dead or dying, we take it back to healthy wood with clean cuts. If branches are giving squirrels a highway onto the roof, we cut them back too. See tree trimming and pruning for how we do it. Most of the time a trim is all the tree needs. If it’s more than that, we’ll tell you straight.

Cleanup is part of the job. Branches hauled, chips raked, driveway swept.

When to Call

Call or text (289) 475-5822, Monday to Sunday, 8am to 8pm, if a chewed branch has gone bare over the house, a deck or a driveway, or if a young tree has lost bark around its main stem. Text us a photo of the damage and we’ll come out the same day with a free quote. If a branch is hanging over the roof now, it’s also worth reading how often trees should be trimmed.