The tree will heal. But you need to eliminate the squirrels.

Last year I picked Nakita's Gift and let some ripen and dried some. Most of the fruit that I allowed to ripen turned a black color on one side, the skin gets rough, and the pulp inside next to the black area was not good. The rest of the fruit tasted good. Must be some kind of disease. The dried fruit were excellent, seems like the astringency goes away after only a 3-4 hours of drying, even though they are not completely dried. They ended up tasting like candy, much better than the Saijo that I dried, but to be fair, the entire crop of Saijo did not seem to taste as well as what I remember a Saijo should taste like. that was my first attempt at drying persimmon, and I don't think that I dried them as much as they were supposed to be, about 12 hours, but I kept them in the freezer and they were very good eating through the winter.

No negative from me. I've had a winter hoop house for two winters with no squirrel damage. And we have squirrels. Lots and lots of very brazen, vocal squirrels. Little buggers decimate my strawberry patch every Spring which sits right next to the hoop house. This year I'm making some protective structures to fit over my new strawberry beds so I'll have their number. However, it's also possible that what you put in the hoop house might possibly have an effect on how determined they are to get inside. Mostly I have bell peppers in there which they probably aren't keen on.

It is the inner bark of the japanese maple that they are after. They also harvest the bark from a few other trees, but if there is a japanese maple around its the one. The inner bark dries out to a very fine fibrous fluff after they chew it up and process it for their nests. The sap that runs in the spring is *decent*, but thats not what they are after—they can get much better sap from other species, such as red or sugar maple or river birch, etc. It’s the inner bark they want. They usually will not strip branches that are less than 1/2” to 1’ thick, unless they are desperate. Dogs/cats will not be an effective deterent. Squirrels are persistent and patient and very serious and committed concerning their nest-building endeavors. They will not be deterred by predators. They will simply learn routines and the yard’s vulnerable times when the trees are unprotected and they will adapt and overcome any predator threat they encounter while hunting for a gathering nest building materials. Trying to draw then away with food or another source of bedding will not work. They are not after food and they dont want your replacement mayerials like cotton balls or lint or anything else. Nothing is as good for their purposes as the inner bark just above the cambium layer of the japanese maple. So, drawing them away from the tree will simply not work—that is, unless you are using a bigger, more healthy japanese maple for the squirrels as an alternative to your tree. (Where they can harvest all the bedding they please.) There are three approaches you can try. 1. You can try to physically stop them with aluminum foil/wrapping chicken wire around the braches several times, or using something even better like aluminum flashing. 2. You can try to deter them. Using sparlkly shiny stuff like christmas tinsel/icicles or CDs hanging in the branches. Will take a lot and its ugly but it only needs to be there during nest-building season. 3. You can try to make it taste terrible. Using a combination of hot pepper and some terrible tasting grease, or whatever concoction you find works. Usually it will take a combo ot at least two of these tactics and sometimes all three, although if the squrrels areng desperate maybe only one. With squirrels and Japanese maples, you can follow the “how to survive a bear attack rule”. (You dont have to run faster than the bear to survive—you only need to be faster than the slowest memeber of your party.) So yeah, You dont necessarily have defeat the squirrels and drive them off. You just need some neighbors with bigger and better maples than yours. Convince some neighbors to plant Japanese maples all over the place in the neighborhood and eventually they will have way more than they could ever utilize. And they‘ll leave you and your japanese maple alone in peace. Cheers.