I had a zone designated for drinking, on a river, with plenty of room for dwarves. There were no other tasks associated with the zone, and it was the shortest distance for any dwarf to travel. I set orders to zone-only drinking just to make sure they wouldn't go wandering off and drink from other parts of the river full of spindly killer death carp.
Nonetheless all the thirsty dwarves took a several mile trek to the lair of the spindly killer death carp in order to drink, subsequently getting *one-shot-killed* by the carp at that location and drug underwater.
By the time I abandoned the fort there were half a dozen perfectly capable dwarves at the bottom of the river, including a competent axedwarf.
In short there are three bugs here:
1. The zones aren't working correctly for drinking. Setting it to zone only should *forbid* any other drinking areas, just like forbidding dwarves to go outside during a siege.
2. Fish should skill up for swimming unless dwarves skill up equally as much from standing around looking stupid.
3. Yes, carp will attack your finger if you dangle them in the water, but if you put something down longer than a finger (like a hand or a beard) they'll run away faster than a kobold from a sheriff (or swim, if you like). They shouldn't be able to drag dwarves to their doom, they're the size of a shoe.
I'm sure, based on other reports, that these are known to some degree. This is just to confirm that there *is* in fact a problem with zones, fish, and swimming skill ups.
-Dgn. Biscuit