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[Broken Bolt]

I hunted a lot, got heaps of wolves and some cougars and loads of deer of course, now there are no wild animals.

Keep thinking some will wander in from a border but it doesn't seem to be happening.

Has anyone had luck limiting hunting to avoid extinction?

[Wiles]

Do animals go extinct? I know they have a yearly population limit.

[Wronghorn]

I've had this happen too.  I had two extremely proficient hunters wipe out everything and now I have no leather/bone sources except for kobolds and turtles.

[BurnedToast]

Animals go extinct quite quickly. A single hunter can overhunt a map with low biodiversity (just deer and groundhogs, say) and even ones with alot (jungles and whatnot) 2 or 3 hunters will do it in a year.

I don't know how it all works, exactly, and I'm not sure if it's a bug or a feature. It is pretty annoying though because I rather prefer the idea of dwarves hunting rather then farming but it's just not possible as it is.

It's a shame, because in the 2d version afaik the maps never ran out.

[ShunterAlhena]

Animals do come back. At least my hunters had slaughtered every moving creature on the entire map, and the butcheries were overflowing, but it has suddenly stopped. Now, some animals are present already. So they do wander in.

Another source of food are the muskoxes. I don't know about you but I have an whole colony of the damn leafeaters and I've encaged them to breed. Then, I kill off the calves. Yummy!

Related question: do animals die of old age or malnourishment? This muskox cage is in a tiny cell, behind a forbidden door, nothing ever goes in there (animal rights protectors would shoot me on the spot) and the muskoxen live happily ever after inside.

[Grek]

quote:Originally posted by ShunterAlhena:
Related question: do animals die of old age or malnourishment? This muskox cage is in a tiny cell, behind a forbidden door, nothing ever goes in there (animal rights protectors would shoot me on the spot) and the muskoxen live happily ever after inside.

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.

[Skanky]

quote:Originally posted by Grek:
<STRONG>

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>

Wrong. Animals in cages eat or drink nothing. Just like animals out of cages eat or drink nothing.

[pushy]

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)

[Another]

Seeds from raw plants may appear in cages if and only if an animal in such a cage was tamed by your dwarves. Taming is the only case when any animal eats.

On animal extinction: IMHO it happens and after 1-3 common animals have been extinct in your area chances for less common animals that are present in your biome in less quantities (various bears in my fortresses) rise to a moderately high level.

[panoptiC]

quote:Originally posted by Another:
<STRONG>On animal extinction: IMHO it happens and after 1-3 common animals have been extinct in your area chances for less common animals that are present in your biome in less quantities (various bears in my fortresses) rise to a moderately high level.</STRONG>

I am not sure about the calculation behind this mechanism, but it just so happened that my area was full with hippos, warthogs and the occasional lion or cougar. The problem was that the more my hunters tried to get rid of the hippos, the more came. Well, mostly because my hunters couldn't get to them [7/7] water. And in the long run I had to drain the river to get rid of those hippos.
One thing did strike me as odd, though. After killing some of the hippos suddenly I had at least four or five named hippos. After my hunters were killed and the new ones were in archery training I looked at the creature list. To my dismay there were at least a dozen named hippos.
Dunno if this is related, but so far I had no problems with extinction, actually it's the other way around.

R

[ShunterAlhena]

What biome is that? I don't have any predators, there were some foxes and wolves that took down some hunters but as the saying goes, "The fox is a cunning animal. A mediocre hunter can shoot a fox from 100 meters. The fox can then screw its cunning." so after crossbows were distributed to my huntsmen there was a preposterous decaying pile of F corpses in my Rotting Room.
So I'm kinda short on foxes and wolves, right now. Only these dumbass muskoxen. This is one cruel game I must tell you.

[Hague]

So, we can confirm that the animals go extinct forever? I mean, there is a population value in the raws that can be modified that dictates how many creatures of that type appear every year, but I wasn't aware that you could drive any of them to extinction. You're positive they never come back?

[Nil Eyeglazed]

I don't know how anybody but Toady (if even him) could say for sure that animals go extinct.  Nobody's played a game that's infinitely long  

There was always a herd of animals and a solitary, tough creature at the beginning of my game.  Once I started hunting, it seemed that as soon as one herd was wiped out, another would enter.  After a long period of hunting, I saw herds of animals that I hadn't seen before.  After a while, I didn't see any new animals.  I think it's been about five years without animals, but I did just (after five years) get a herd of rhesus macaques.  Then, nothing again.

[Capntastic]

Keep in mind that a fortress map is probably less than a mile square, it'd be hard to permanently extinct a species from one location.   This is why we need the armies arc kicked into full gear so we can send out patrols.

[BurnedToast]

quote:Originally posted by Hague:
<STRONG>So, we can confirm that the animals go extinct forever? I mean, there is a population value in the raws that can be modified that dictates how many creatures of that type appear every year, but I wasn't aware that you could drive any of them to extinction. You're positive they never come back?</STRONG>

I can't confirm they go extinct forever (as I've never played a fortress forever) but I can confirm Nil Eyeglazed's 5+ years. I hunted all the animals to extinction in year one and not a single one appeared for the next 5 or 6 years till I abandoned it.