Oxfordshire Woodland Group

The impact of squirrel damage to juvenile beech trees is long lasting and potentially renders an outwardly clean looking log to become worth little more than firewood

In the example shown above a cross section of the base of a 55 year old beech tree was recovered following felling of the tree. The outside of the log looked good but inspection of the cross section after drying same for over a year reveals that the tree was damaged on several occassions when young (8 - 15 yrs) and despite attempts to heal over bark stripped wood it has not been possible for new wood to bond or fuse with old dry wood nor for bark to bark faces to merge and become one fused timber trunk.

It would therefore appear likely that any beech tree planted after 1900 is unlikely to be able to produce structurally sound timber as per beech tree plantings made a good time before the arrival of the grey squirrel. Old beech trees are therefore much more valuable from a sound timber perspective than young beech trees.

Ken Hume

Squirrels - love them or hate them. We hate them !

Thanks to Jack Malvern of The Times for bringing this to the nation's attention.