A brown hare bite small branches

Last summer I detected in the garden a new shoot of either the dying plum or a long ago dead plum that has a stump left. The shoot is near both of them. The fruit tree root sprout won't always grow into a productive tree, but sometimes they will. We decided to leave it.

Last winter a brown hare has visited and cut off the tips of all small branches. It had left droppins as an evidence:) The shoot now seems to be like a spring cut. New buds have appeared. So the game is not lost:)) We are still growing it. Also ants seem to like it.