Wild blackberries can be downright hard to kill, though you should not expect much is any fruit this year as almost all blackberries fruit on second year canes. So the new canes coming up this summer will have fruit on them next spring, then after fruiting the canes die as the canes for next years fruit are already emerging.

It’s the fruiting canes that they chewed (everything is still dormant here and there aren’t any new canes yet).

I make little hardware cloth cylinders to protect my new caneberry growth from squirrels. It would work on older canes if the cylinder seam was not fastened until placed around the cane.

The animal is likely nibbling off the thorn tips or just working around them; caneberry thorns are somewhat spaced.

The lowermost section of the canes are completely stripped- there’s no sign whatsoever of the thorns.

Without pics, it is hard to say. but in terms of the plants living through it, i wouldn't worry. I once lived in Washington and we had them overrun in the backyard, it took about two years for us to pull it all out and get all the roots, otherwise they just kept coming back. Had to do it section by section.

Probably rabbit damage if they stripped the canes like that. I grow thornless blackberries and a few years ago was a tough winter and every cane was stripped like yours. I cut them all off and expected no berries that year, but somehow they ended up producing just fine!

They'll survive anything this side of Crossbow herbicide. Bush hog them, they'll still come back even more vigorous. You won't have any berries this year, though. Just last week, I observed deer right in the middle of a black berry thicket though binoculars..they were eating the tender new leaves right off the thorny canes.

If your clumps aren't too large, you could always try fencing off with welded wire, or try a deterrent.

Thanks everyone.

Sorry the lighting isn’t all that good. The thorns are simply gone from the chewed areas (and these plants have really big thorns). Some of the pics also have the critter holes.

I’m not at all worried that the plants won’t survive- my question is whether there’s any hope of getting fruit from those canes?

If the canes leaf out as normal, they will likely go on to bloom and fruit. It is hard to tell from the photos if the chewing went deep enough to kill the cane.

Thanks- that gives me hope.

I meant to mention earlier that they are budding out normally. I did go through and prune out some more (and found a few where they had chewed deeply enough that the canes were starting to bend over- I got rid of those ones).