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[Uzu Bash]

A creature with sharp olfactory senses should be able to have a whiff around to determine what fauna resides in the biome. Is there prey worth hunting? What predators already hunt it? They all leave their trace scents. For best results, the creature would need to be on a natural tile, with improved clarity for each natural tile around. Domestic animals in a settled site would be much easier to identify, and tiles with construction or building on them wouldn't reduce ability by as much. If a site contains a predator's (inc werebeast's) natural prey, that predator would hunt or rampage there longer.

[Admiral Obvious]

The player is already capable of doing that with the K key. I'm not sure what you are trying to say exactly. As far as I know, animals are semi randomly placed throughout the sub biome. If you want animals to be able to roam about that would probably be quite damaging to FPS for the game to track herds of animals throughout the world. I wouldn't know though.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Each region's wildlife populations are tracked so the data is available. Not sure about the rest of the suggestion though. Predators hunting prey would have to be implemeted first (and that suggestion is around somewhere).

[Uzu Bash]

You're overcomplicating the suggestion. All an olfactory search need do is reveal the biome's animal populations, information that is already in world data. The animals currently present in loaded tiles is irrelevant. No search of active units needed, no new AI needed.

This is enough information to decide whether it's worthwhile to walk through local tiles to hunt, or fast travel and skip.

[Dirst]

You're overcomplicating the suggestion. All an olfactory search need do is reveal the biome's animal populations, information that is already in world data. The animals currently present in loaded tiles is irrelevant. No search of active units needed, no new AI needed.

This is enough information to decide whether it's worthwhile to walk through local tiles to hunt, or fast travel and skip.

Even if you wanted to sniff all of the creatures in an area (for example, the wagon-pullers and caged critters in a caravan), it turns out to be surprisingly quick to cycle through every unit every tick with a Lua script in DFHack.  This would only need to check upon arriving, and maybe when new creatures enter the area, and functionality within the game would obviously have better performance than a Lua script.

[Uzu Bash]

Like I said, you're overcomplicating; the suggestion does not need recognize any creature currently loaded.

Every population indigenous to a biome will leave it's scent, on the ground and on the flora. It will linger whether any member of the population is present or not.

Every population indigenous to a biome is in world_data and the .xml output. This is far from difficult to access from outside the game, so I can know what they are. But how is a fortress or adventurer informed?

The second part of the suggestion has more to do with world activation and a little to do with real time path selection, and it only pertains to predators who have nemesis records. Whether or not a predator's natural prey is present should influence the duration of its time in the area. A predator that finds its natural prey may not leave the area, and would spend more time in its lair digesting its meals. Finding its natural prey can delay a predator en route to a settlement, or may extend its rampage when it arrives.

[GoblinCookie]

This is already in the game already.  It is quite possible to smell creatures that you never actually encounter because they moved over that area before.