Why does my cat scratch around his food bowl?

Telling you that he doesn’t care for what you’re feeding him.

An affectation?

It’s instinct for cats to cache food, cover up the kill. Your cat is attempting to bury/ hide his food so others won’t take it.
If your cat was a mountain lion he would cover up his deer carcass with leaves and branches and dirt and come back to feed again later.

It’s caching behavior. In the wild, cats will bury or cover food that they can’t eat to hide or protect it from other predators.

I wonder why he just started doing it recently? There have been no changes to the environment. Odd.

Maybe he saw outdoor cats and is reacting to that. My boy cat used to get so irritated when he would see a cat anywhere around our house.

I think he’s still hungry and digging for more

My cats have done this sporadically but not consistently. It’s such a long standing instinctual behavior trait from generations and I guess sometimes they feel their food is more vulnerable than at other times?

Obviously with us to feed them, its not vulnerable at all but instinct isn’t really logical. It just is. Its the same type of thing as the need to circle round and round before finally settling in to lie down. In the wild it served to trample down the leaves, brush and debris in the outdoors but doesn’t really apply indoors. But their instinct has them doing it anyway even on an already comfortable carpeted floor or cozy human bed :)

My cat does the same thing from time to time and I’ve always wondered why. Thanks for asking! ** Great question +3 **

I live in Mtn. Lion territory over here and have, on several occasions, have been out hiking and come across cached deer carcasses. Bad, very bad…get the hell away from that deer now. The hills have eyes, oh yes they do! lol