I somehow got cut off from my question. Anyway I found it chewed down to about 2 feet. I could understand if if was the dead of winter, but there's lots of food around. Any ideas of why it would be tempting now to some animal?

Does it look like animal damage and not pests? I would suspect deer even though there is plenty for them to eat elsewhere. All my sunflowers were "pruned down to 4 ft; the tomatoes were chewed off at the top, and they even chewed on the rhubarb! I lost all my peaches to them and they have damaged some of the peach branches. I have to assume deer given the heighth but maybe it's bigfoot.