scratches?

[London]

I have been finding more and more scratch piles and was wondering if a female will make a scratch pile or just males. A female has to pee somewhere and i would assume they would cover it up like any cat.

[dwalton]

Yes females will make scratches also. Like a tom but not often. I think the thought is that they do it when in heat. They make scratches with hind feet and pee on top as toms do. I have seen lion cover with the front feet where they have left scat but not often. I have seen a pile raked up in a mound by lions with many scats in it of different ages of weathering. What is seen most often is a tom scratching with hind feet and then peeing on it to mark where they have been to other lions. The more lions the more scratches. The most that I have seen is in a area where several toms are competing for a female. Dewey

[houndnem]

I've never heard of a female making a scratch like a tom does. toms do this as more of a way of marking their teritory than burrying their scat. be interesting to see what everyone else has to say about this. I'm sure there are plenty that know more than me, but that's my experiance and my unerstanding of why it happens.