Unwanted Girdling

This week the weather has been nice enough so that when i walk my dog, I can hold my head up instead of tucking myself as deep into my coat as I possibly can to retain my body heat - like a turtle. So, with my head held up, I noticed that something has been girdling my sumac shrubs. Something has eaten all the bark from about 4 inches off the ground to a couple feet off the ground. The bark below 4 inches is still there and the bark above 24 inches is still there but the rest of the bark has been chewed off all the way around. I find this destruction not on one sumac shrub, not two, but 80% of my sumac shrubs. Only the tough, older, and thickest sumac shrubs are not girdled. I estimate I have 50+ girdled sumac shrubs. I noticed the neighbor across the street also has his sumac shrubs girdled. Who did this? Who girdled my sumac shrubs? The damage is too low to the ground to be a deer. Woodchucks hibernate so they are innocent. My theory is wascally wabbits! The lower inches of the shrub were protected by the snow cover. The height of the snow allowed the rabbits to eat up so high. I like sumac. I like their bright scarlet color in the fall. I am lucky that sumac grow like weeds and propagate by rhizomes (underground shoots) as well as seeds. Sumac grows like a weed so within a few years this damage will be negligible. But I am not happy about my girdled sumac.