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Index of Subjects It sounds like a beaver to me. I'm a director of the N.S.Trapper's Ass. and have never heard of a muskret doing this, though I suppose it's possible.. This time of year, beaver are often on the move, looking for new territory, and one might have stopped there for a snack before continuing on its way. They often eat wild rose bushes, and their roots. Billy > We live on Chocolate Lake in Halifax, and during our time the garden has > always > had a multi-stalked rose bush growing within a couple of feet of the lake > edge. > This was trained up high over a tree and has (or had) six sturdy woody > stems > each about 1 inch thick: it must have been growing there for 20+ years. > A couple of days ago I noticed that most of the leaves on the rose were > shrivelled and dying, and traced this back to find that 5 of the 6 stems > appeared to have been hacked through with a machete, probably about a week > earlier. After thinking dark misanthropic thoughts, on closer inpection > there > were some striations on the hacks and the two ends of each hack didn't > seem to > match. It looked as if short sections had been removed by something with > teeth > -- looks like a rodent did it. This urban lake doesn't look like prime > beaver > habitat and I've never seen or heard of one living or visiting locally on > the > lake, but at least one muskrat has lived here for some years and is still > around. > > Question: this muskrat regularly chews off nearby soft plant shoots > (lilies?) > that grow directly out of the lake near the edge. I thought that muskrats > exclusively subsist on such soft diet material and don't go after woody > shrubs > or trees in the manner of a beaver. Is this correct, or could the muskrat > be a > possible culprit for the woody rose incident? > Steve >
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