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[Silveron]

quote:Originally posted by pushy:
<STRONG>And to answer the other question, yes, animals (as with dwarves) will eventually die of old age. As it was mentioned, I'll use the Musk Ox as an example - it'll live until it's between 10 and 20 before it'll kick the bucket, unless it dies of other means before then. Dwarves eventually die of old age anywhere between 150 and 170 years old...should anyone have had a fortress long enough to see a dwarf die of old age, I'd be impressed  
If you're farming livestock, try to keep track of how old your current lot are so you're not suddenly caught out by them dying of old age a few years down the line. Most domestic animals in the game live for 10-20 years; after about 5 years it might be an idea to let newborns grow up and instead slaughter their parents (bear in mind to take into consideration the length of time it takes for a baby to grow into a child-bearing adult - it's usually one year, but can be different for some creatures (e.g. elephant calves take a whopping 10 years to grow into elephants))

There are a few creatures that won't die of old age, though. Elves are among them (presumably a nod towards Tolkien, whose elves were also immortal unless killed in battle)</STRONG>

I usually just kill the ones at the top of the stocks/animals list as those are the oldest. As long as you leave at least one male and several female adults you shouldnt have to worry too much.

[siprus]

Bah... And every new immigrant wave brings with it tons of hunters. Seems that i have to start limiting number of my hunting dwarfs to 2 or maybe even just 1

[Miriage]

The last reply before the one above was over 5 years ago. Necro Legendary+5

[Hague]

Pretty sure there's a maximum population per biome feature (The Woods of Functioning, for instance) and that gets bumped up every so often by a certain amount. So you could functionally drive them to extinction, though a few would return, eventually. I know vermin (like fish) seem to repopulate every season. It stands to reason that the population of larger creatures is also seasonal but since it's applied across a larger area you don't notice them appearing? Could be the population refresh rate is based on the MAXAGE of the animal? Seasonal refresh for fish since their maxage is 2-3 but longer on larger creatures?

[Raphite1]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Grek:
<STRONG><P>Animals in cages require food and will starve if they don't get any. Dwarfs will bring them food, assuming they aren't behind a locked door.</STRONG><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Wrong. Animals in cages eat or drink nothing. Just like animals out of cages eat or drink nothing.

Many herbivores DO eat grass, and will starve to death if none is available


I think you can prevent wild animal extinction by not killing entire groups. If, for example, you only kill three out of the four wolves in a pack, and the fourth wolf leaves the map, its group can arrive again. Though sometimes its hard to get animals to leave if the "leader" of their group has been trapped or killed.

[Pinstar]

I wonder if your caravan requests have any impact. I mean, if you say you desire Fox meat, barrels of fox blood, fox leather, fox leather <product>, logically that would cause the civ you are trading with to ramp up their fox hunting efforts.

Though I'm not sure if that actually gets simulated.

[Garath]

lovely speculation all around.

Now try again with the starting assumption that currently the world outside your embark is frozen in time. No new products are made, no baby dwarfs or animals are born. No new populations are generated.

Caravans either bring existing stuff, or new items are randomly generated the moment they enter the map. When requesting fox meat, noone goes fox hunting because everyone is frozen. Animal populations most definately can go extinct, as do fish populations. It's actually a well known issue that there are no vermin fish in older fortresses, even if you didn't fish extensively. Animals, and fish, don't repopulate outside the fort area because everything outside is frozen in time and usually don't stay on the map long enough to do so even if they have the required tags and there is, currently, no code to repopulate depleted populations - at least not in vanilla DF

[Sutremaine]

Many herbivores DO eat grass, and will starve to death if none is available

Bear in mind that the post you're replying to was made in 2008.

[Dorfus]

This thread is a brilliant window of the past.