This little tree from yesterday’s post makes me nervous…it doesn’t have a fence around it and looks so vulnerable.
This is the tree that was Andy’s heart and joy two years ago:
He had carefully nurtured it and it was slightly over six feet tall, taller than he was.
This is what it looked like two months later:
What happened? Either deer or elk killed it when they used it to rub the velvet off their antlers. Why then, not before? Because when they visited Kaitlin and Torben had worked hard to start a defensible space in that area, and Kaitlin’s folks hadn’t protected the tree with a fence.
Sigh….
June 19, 2020
Oh, is it totally dead? Maybe it can come back in the spring! But it will need a fence or something.
It died… it happened two years ago so Andy planted another tree there.
oh nooooooooooooooo – nature is the one thing that we have “faith” in right now, but it seems that there is actually “nature AND natural” that seem to collide. I wonder if the deer fought over the tree for their “own scratching post” or was it just one particular deer that had a soft spot for a tree at this stage…
They are desperate for trees to rub against. Apparently they don’t like the dead ones still standing.
What a shame.
Yes, that was really sad.
oh no, what a shame. Of all the trees the deer/elk could pick, why that one.
The trouble is there are too few trees up there. All the evergreens burned down in 2011 and now the only ones there are the ones Andy and Beate and Tim planted. They almost destroyed the big limber pine Beate and Tim planted for him, but he built a fence around it and it survived, He’s planning to put netting around the little evergreens to dissuade the deer/elk. Fingers crossed.
So sorry you lost your beautiful tree! I know the animals are suffering from lack of having the trees they need I’ve seen Bears rubbing their backs on trees and they like their own special tree. I feel so bad for all the wildlife in the areas that have been burned and they have no food no shelter no rubbing places.
I know! 🙁
That is so disappointing…I wish it had lived.
I am on my phone so hope this posts.
We do too. 🙁
No!!!!!!!!!
🙁
Unfortunately yes. 🙁
A shame the tree was killed after all the effort to keep it alive. I didn’t know deer and elks use trees to rub velvet off their antlers. Very anti-social of them!