Trees for Cities launch Bark for the Bark Campaign

With the start of a new planting season, the independent charity Trees for Cities has launched an awareness campaign, Bark for the Bark, calling for dog owners to be aware of the potentially fatal damage caused to trees by dogs chewing and gnawing tree bark.

By ripping off tree bark, dogs effectively starve the trees to death - water can still rise up through the middle of the tree, so the leaves may continue to look healthy through the summer - but the tree needs to store the sugar produced in the leaves down in the roots. The sugars travel down through a layer called the cambium, which is just under the bark. Once this is stripped, the tree’s reserves dwindle and it eventually dies - in a mature tree this can take several years.

Sadly there are dog owners who are unaware of this threat, and Trees for Cities’ landscaping staff sees evidence of the damage caused by dogs on a regular basis, particularly in parks.

Graham Simmonds, Chief Executive at Trees for Cities, says: “Through our Bark for the Bark campaign we want to raise awareness of the fatal damage that dogs can potentially inflict on trees. We know that dog owners love walking their dogs in attractive parks and woodlands and I am confident that when they realise the danger to the trees they will stop fido sinking his fangs into the wood bark.”

http://www.treesforcities.org/