TOM LIONS NOT SCRAPING,WHAT'S UP?

[david]

David, i dont believe the housecat has done you disservice when it comes to toilet behavior. Most of our observations of house cats are happening in the litterbox. When it comes to big cats i still believe they bury their dung using their front feet just as a housecat does in the litterbox. I have a dog that will locate these buried lion toilets and eat the dung. Recently she dug one up and it had lots and lots of dung from fresh to pearly white old dung. This cat obviously comes through this saddle and takes a chit in the same toilet every time its around the area. This toilet is completely concealed and buried. i assume its using its front feet to dig and bury dung. On to the second toilet i know of....this one is totally above ground well used but no sign at all of that lion attempting to bury or conceal it. The third toilet i'll talk about is a mix of both. In toilet number one the dung was completely buried and the pine litter smoothed back over to conceal it. In this one the dung is deposited on toilet and dirt and leaf litter are pulled from around toilet and mixed with dung making a huge mound of dung, dirt and leaves all piled up about two feet by two feet by the height of my boots. There are no scrapes in the immediate area of these toilets. I am convinced that territorial scraping and dung deposit scraping are two totally different behaviors in which the lion digs in the ground with its feet. I will purchase some video capable cameras to place on these toilets to try to catch some footage of front foot scraping to bury dung. I have seen housecats do both territorial scraping with hind feet and bury excrement with its front feet. This combined with the first and third toilets described leads me to believe they scrape with their back feet and bury excrement with their front feet. Now the dung depositing behaviors of lions has always interested me. I have seen dung deposited on rocks obviously left as a marker. It took skill to land those turds on that tall pointy rock! There is also a tom behind my house that leaves dung in lots of his scrapes. So i believe dung is left on rocks and at scrapes as territorial marking behavior. Then I have seen it in toilets. How long do you think they are willing to hold it and how far will they travel just to use a toilet? I have seen it unburied and all alone not associated with a toilet or scrape.i picture it like it was a quick take a dump and keep walking like i do when i hunt. If i'm near camp i bury it but if i'm chasin a bugling bull down and gotta go i just dump and run!

That would be awesome if you catch that on video. This stuff is so amazing to watch. It's hard to admit it because I always admired the simple life and longed for the good ol days but in terms of knowledge and understanding what is going on out there, this might be the best time to be alive right now with these cameras and the Garmin technology.

So now I am wondering if the established toilet, and especially the carefully concealed toilet, might be more common for females, who are not always wanting everyone to know where they are, and not trolling for Toms because they have kittens hidden? And might a toilet, male or female, give hints toward where the animal was born (and learned that behavior in that place from mom?)

I don't live in established lion habitat, but when I have been there the only feces I have found was either random and uncovered, or in association with a scrape. And I saw one on my last trip west that was so huge it made me look around and swallow hard. I think he was swallowing deer whole for a snack before dinner.
I have seen bobcat toilets, but never knew of any that were perfectly concealed. But it stands to reason that I would not see those. And where as every dog I ever hunted is very interested in cat dung, and it is only one "specialist" of yours that goes subterranean, it is conceivable that I never had that specialist.

I sure appreciate the great knowledge being shared here. Thank you to all who have shared. Fascinating.

[rockytrails]

A few years ago I was with a buddy elk hunting in AZ. We were sitting one evening listening for bugles when we heard a loud scream/growl not far from us. We looked at each other, heard it again. I guessed bull beef. He guessed maybe bull elk. We snuck towards it. A bobcat. I videos it a while but he had caught us and never made another sound. Not what I expected from that sound. Quite loud and throaty.

[rockytrails]

Checking traps once. Heard a lion scream. My first thought was lion but had never heard that before. Heard it a couple more times and finally spotted it walking under the cliffs.

[rockytrails]

Bobcat sounded nothing like the lion.

[mulehound]

I have been hunting an area where quotas are set high and never met. It is a predator removal unit. The population is replinished by lions from Colorado. Almost every lion that crosses into the state is removed every year. I brought this up at a regional advisory committee meeting. Utah is fine with it, they stated a population is a population even if it is transient.
I noticed five years ago that there are no scrapes ever. I have not seen one in all the time I have spent in the saddle. A young man and I caught a nice sized tom last year, followed him quite a ways. Not a scrape, he was collared and tagged in Colorado when he was a three year old then moved a long ways into utah.
When I hunt my old stomping grounds I Find scrapes. The population is not hunted out as much compared to where I live now.
I kind of think that they do not ever establish a home territory so never get around to marking it. Just my two cents.
Darrel

[Chris Todd]

This was a question that I thought a lot about this winter and am still trying to learn about as winter is pretty much over here. When the question was first asked I had several toms around me. And they all seemed to be heavy scrappers, marking their territories at will. Over the winter several of these toms have been taken by my self and others.
I know of three territories that have been taken over by younger toms. And all three are far less frequent scraping lions than the previous toms. That would leave me to believe that these new toms on the scene are younger animals.
I treed one tom in some country close to me here recently. I had taken a real large tom out of this area a few months ago. I hunted this young tom for a few weeks before getting him caught. The thing that really surprised me first was the few number of scratches. Then it was the fact that most of his scratches were in the same spots that the previous tom liked to scratch. The GandF aged this young tom at about 18to24 months old. Which sounded about right to me.
So this young tom had probably come through this country. Found no sign of a larger tom and was starting to set up shop. And I am sure as he got more confident he would have started scratching more. What surprises me is how fast the recruitment is in this area. So just guessing in areas with better lion populations. And I will guarantee you the country I am hunting right now does not have a real large lion population. But in areas with better populations the recruitment of young toms would be even faster. So if you are having a fast turn over of your tom lions that could be a lot of the reason for seeing fewer scratches.

[pegleg]

I thought the quick turn over was part of it. And it probably is. But I hunted in a area with a steady number of young toms and not many big toms due to hunting and they were scrapping more then what I would consider normal maybe just trying not to bump into each other. And in the area of Mexico I've been hunting it's still unusual to see a scrape with a large number of mature toms. Maybe its easier to overlook in some areas but there's still got to be something else affecting it.

[horshur]

Seems to me a Tom scratches more when he is coming into his own and a she is due to be in.
But older Toms don't scratch much if any I don't think they need to.
We always have more scratching after a large dominant Tom has been shot.
When a big Tom is around the young cats don't scratch as often they don't want to advertise.

[Rowdy Fitz]

Has anyone gotten around to putting trail cameras up on scrapes yet?

[Rowdy Fitz]

I caught one on video. Looks to me like they use their back feet. This cat’s track was only 3.5” wide. I’m not sure if it was a young tom or a female.

https://youtube.com/shorts/JUxnaR0Ok5c?feature=share

[mulehound]

I know this is a old thread but here goes. I lived in Moab for seven years. The area gets hunted hard hence no mature Toms. I caught two in seven years. One was collared in Montrose Colorado. I never saw a scrape one. I ride a lot of country mule back. I don’t believe a mature Tom was given a chance to establish a territory. Lion population was always drifting in from Colorado. Area biologists agreed. One of them also me that an ecosystem did not need Lions in it to be healthy.
I did see female bathroom piles here and there but very few. Utah is in a full scale war on lion populations right now.
Darrel

[Rowdy Fitz]

I’m finding quite a few here in NV. I always seem to miss the toms though. Keep finding females in my trees. lol
I’ve gotten videos of toms and females with kittens under the same scrape trees. Only the lone lions are scraping though. Haven’t been able to confirm if they’re toms or lone females. I keep missing them by two or more days.