On Mayday, while hiking on the North Country Trail north of the Timbercreek campground, we came across this,
The NCT is marked with blue blazes about 5 feet high all along the trail. These blazes looked very fresh, likely done this spring. It appears a bear sampled this blaze, the tree was gouged only here, it didn’t appear to have been climbed, and it wasn’t scratched up like a territory claim tree. Further down the trail about 30 yards a second tree, also a red pine, was marked and gouged the same way.
Just a wild guess, but perhaps a hungry, just awoken bear was attracted to either the smell of the paint or the color and had to check it out, These were the only scratched blaze marks we saw, and only on red pines. Probably a disappointing taste for someone.
