I would bet bear, it looks like it was from earlier in the spring, not very fresh. In plantations where bears are peeling the conifers they sometimes completely girdle the tree and peel the heck out of it and other times they just take a small portion off, I would assume becasue it was not as tasty as one that he peeled completely. Its a nightmare dealing with bear damage from a forest management stand point, it makes it tough to properly manage a stand. We have reprod stands that have 70% damage, some trees were girdled completely which kills the treee and others just have bear damage on the butt which adds a percentage of defect to the tree.