Canadian Firefighters Memorial, June 14, 2015

On this day most of the plant life on the memorial site looked to be doing very well. One of the maple trees has died though not due to any kind of neglect. I took a close look at it and found that all of the bark from the ground up to about a foot/30 centimeters has been removed. I speculate some small critter chewed it off during the winter.

This picture shows the trunk of the maple tree that has died.
You can see that the bark has been removed all around it at its base.

In this closeup of the base of the tree you can see the extent of the removal
of the tree's bark. With bark removed all around the trunk of the tree it
cannot survive.

You can see bark has been removed from the base of this tree. There is more
that has been removed on the other side. but there is still some bark left.
This tree was slow in putting out its leaves but it seems to be thriving.
Hopefully measures can be taken to prevent further damage.

This photograph is as close to the firefighter's point as I could manage without
using a ladder or some other means of getting up to the level of his eyes.
What you see in this picture, without the peripheral vision is what he sees.