Deer and Vole Damage to Rochester Trees and Shrubs: Browsing, Rubbing, and Girdling

By Margaret Ellison, Tree & Shrub Health. Last updated: June 25, 2026

If a young maple, arborvitae, or fruit tree on your Monroe County property came out of winter looking chewed, frayed, or stripped at the base, an animal is almost always the cause. Deer and voles are the two biggest culprits in suburban Rochester yards, and they leave very different signatures. This guide helps you read the damage, judge whether the plant will pull through, and stop it from happening again.

How do you tell deer browsing from rodent damage?

Start by looking at the height and the cut. Deer feed from the ground up to roughly five or six feet, so browsing damage clusters in that zone and disappears higher up the plant. Deer lack upper incisors, so they grip and tear rather than slice. The result is a ragged, torn twig tip, not a clean angled cut. (A clean 45-degree cut means a person with pruners, or sometimes a rabbit on small stems.)

Voles work at the opposite end. They gnaw bark right at or just below the soil line, often hidden under snow all winter, and you may not see the damage until the snowpack melts in March. Vole gnawing leaves narrow, irregular grooves about an eighth of an inch wide, usually in patches around the base. Rabbits also chew low bark but leave wider, cleaner gouges and tend to clip pencil-thick stems at that telltale angle.

So the quick read: torn twigs at chest height point to deer, fine gnaw marks at the root flare point to voles, and angled clips point to rabbits.

What does deer browsing do to a tree or shrub?

Browsing removes buds, tender twigs, and foliage. On established shade trees it is mostly cosmetic, because the canopy is out of reach. On young trees, newly planted stock, and shrubs like arborvitae, yews, euonymus, and hostas, repeated browsing can be serious. Deer favor arborvitae so heavily in winter that they will shear an entire side flat to the browse line.

A plant browsed once will usually flush new growth and recover. The danger is chronic pressure: when deer return night after night through a hard Finger Lakes winter, they exhaust the plant's energy reserves and can deform or kill young evergreens. Arborvitae rarely refills bare interior wood, so a heavily browsed one often stays permanently thin on the fed side. If your evergreens are also browning from cold and wind, our guide on winter tree protection covers the overlap between animal and weather damage.

Why is buck rub so damaging to young trunks?

In fall, bucks rub their antlers on saplings to remove velvet and mark territory, usually on smooth-barked trees one to four inches in diameter. The rubbing shreds bark vertically and exposes the wood underneath. This matters far more than browsing because it injures the trunk's vascular tissue, the thin living layer that moves water and sugars between roots and crown.

If the rub wounds only one side, the tree often compartmentalizes the injury and survives, though it may carry a permanent scar and a weak point. If the bark is stripped all the way around, the tree is girdled and the top is effectively cut off from its roots. Ragged torn bark can also mimic frost cracks, so if you are unsure whether a wound is animal, weather, or disease, compare it against tree bark splitting and cracking before assuming the worst.

What is girdling, and can a girdled tree survive?

Girdling means the bark and cambium are removed in a complete ring around the trunk or stem. Both bucks (rubbing) and voles (gnawing under snow) cause it. Because the food-conducting phloem runs just under the bark, a full girdle severs the connection between the leaves and the roots. The roots starve, and the tree usually leafs out weakly the next spring, then declines and dies, sometimes not until midsummer.

Here is how to judge survival:

• Partial damage (less than about half the circumference): Good odds. Keep the wound clean and dry, water through dry spells, and let the tree wall it off on its own.
• Most of the way around (roughly 50 to 75 percent): Uncertain. The tree may survive with reduced vigor, or slowly fail. Watch it for a full growing season.
• Complete girdle (full ring): Poor odds for established bark. The tree is living on stored energy and usually will not recover.

Do not paint wound dressing or tar over chewed bark. Decades of research show sealants trap moisture and can make decay worse, not better. If a valued tree is heavily girdled, an evaluation matters because the line between a stressed-but-recoverable tree and a dying one is hard to call by eye. Our piece on stressed vs. dying trees and when to call an arborist walks through the signs, and a certified arborist can confirm whether the cambium is still alive.

How do you protect Rochester trees from deer and voles?

Prevention is mostly physical and seasonal, and the two animals need different defenses.

For deer:

• Fencing and tubes. A mesh cylinder or plastic tree tube around young trunks stops both browsing and rub. For prized beds, a tall fence (deer clear short ones) is the only fully reliable option.
• Repellents. Rotate egg- or capsaicin-based sprays and reapply after rain and snow. Deer habituate fast, so changing scents and adding motion deterrents helps.
• Plant choice. Deer tend to avoid boxwood, spruce, and many ornamental grasses, while feasting on arborvitae, yew, and hosta. Siting vulnerable plants near the house lowers pressure.

For voles:

• Clear the base. Pull mulch back several inches from the trunk so it does not form a cozy, snow-covered runway. This also prevents the bark-rot problems covered in our mulch volcano guide.
• Hardware cloth guards. A quarter-inch wire mesh cylinder sunk an inch into the soil and rising above expected snow depth is the gold standard. Plastic spiral guards help but can harbor moisture.
• Mow and tidy in fall. Voles need cover. Short turf and a tidy plant base near the trunk make your yard far less inviting before snow flies.

FAQ

Will a tree recover if deer ate all the leaves and twigs? Usually yes, if it is otherwise healthy. A single heavy browse triggers a new flush of growth. The risk is repeated browsing over one winter, which drains reserves and can kill young evergreens like arborvitae.

My arborvitae is bare on one side after winter. Will it fill back in? Often not fully. Arborvitae and many conifers do not regenerate needles from bare old interior wood, so a browsed side tends to stay thin. New growth comes from green tips, so protect the remaining foliage and consider screening or replacement.

Can I save a tree the voles girdled at the base? It depends on how complete the girdle is. If a strip of healthy bark remains, the tree can survive and gradually wall off the wound. A complete ring around the trunk is usually fatal, and an arborist can confirm whether the cambium is still alive.

When do deer and voles do the most damage in Rochester? Both peak in winter. Deer browse hardest from late fall through early spring when other food is scarce, and voles do their bark gnawing under the protection of snow, with damage often discovered only at the March melt.

Sources

• Cornell University: Home Gardening Resources
• NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, white-tailed deer information: https://dec.ny.gov/
• USDA Forest Service, tree care and wound response guidance: https://www.fs.usda.gov/
• Monster Tree Service of Rochester (arborist evaluation): https://www.monstertreeservice.com/rochester/