Hunting

 plays a very prominent role in Red Dead Redemption. The player can hunt all featured animals for sport and money, but hunting may also be necessary for survival, as many of the animals found in the world can easily kill the player. The hunting element of the game can involve stalking, advancing upon the targeted animal, and finally making the kill. Animal bait can also be bought from merchants at general stores to attract various animal species.

Skinning allows the player to make a profit from hunting. Skinning an animal allows the player to acquire materials from the animal, which include furs, pelts, claws, meat and horns. These resources can then be sold or traded to merchants, this is considered by many to be one of the fastest sources of gaining money as it can allow player to gather hundreds of dollars worth of resources within minutes, and does not require waiting for the event to be avalible, such as Bounty Hunting. When the player skins an animal, Marston can be seen crouching in front of the animal. He will then take out his knife, and begin to skin the animal, using up to three different cuts, depending on the size of the animal. Blood splats on the screen, confirming a successful skinning. Marston also interjects sometimes funny one liners such as "What have you been eating?" Adding to Rockstar's well-known humor.

Animals are randomly generated in the wilderness, and can sometimes assault the player, his allies and the player's horse, requiring intervention. Marston will sometimes encounter strangers screaming for help as they are pursued by some type of predatory animal. Eliminating the pursuing animals and therefore saving the stranger will grant Marston money and fame. Additionally, hunting at least one of every animal species in the game will earn the player the Unnatural Selection trophy/achievement.

After a kill, vultures will appear, opening up the sharpshooting challenge. Completing this and other challenges will earn you fame, and can unlock outfits for John. The blood of any animal will act as bait for predators, so when you hunt and kill an animal, keep a lookout for wolves, cougars or even bears. The Grizzly Bears are the toughest but the slowest and the cougar is very strong and fast.



Animals
There are approximately 34 different animals that can be encountered in Red Dead Redemption, and any of the listed animals can be hunted. Different animals supply the player with different pelts, claws, meat and other resources with different values, which can be sold. Beware, killing some animals may not please their owners, or the townsfolk for that matter. Slaughter of an owned horse is a crime in and of itself, which if witnessed and reported will result in a bounty.

These animals all interact throughout the wild in a carefully crafted ecosystem. For instance, the player could be traversing the plains and see a herd of buffalo grazing, or while traveling through a forest, one may encounter a cougar hunting an elk, or a grizzly bear defending its territory from a pack of wolves. Note, when you see a grizzly bear defending itself from wolves, it makes an easy target for an average marksman, resulting in a free bear skin.

Animals of different species have different habitats, so time of day sometimes matters as much as location when trying to hunt down specific prey. Players having trouble spotting a particular critter in the day time may often find it to be worth their while to camp out and wait for nightfall.



A wise hunter knows which weapon to use for each type of animal. A small firearm may not make a sufficient impression on a large predator, while some heavy weapons turn humbler creatures into fine red mist (thus preventing the player from skinning them or obtaining body parts necessary for some quests).

Also there seems to be unlimited animals on a landmass in Aurora Basin, if you cross the lake to the small landmass on the left, the same animals seem to infinitely respawn until you leave or die then it changes animals

Some animals only exist on one side of the US/Mexican border. This means Marston's kills can fetch a higher price on the other side.

The following animals appear in the various areas of Red Dead Redemption:

Tools of the Trade
When hunting small game (birds & small mammals) it is advisable use a smaller caliber gun. If too large a weapon caliber is used the animal being hunted has a tendency to explode leaving no remains to be harvested (i.e. shooting a beaver with a shotgun will not produce any skinnable remains)

Quicker Skinning
To speed up the skinning process simply walk your horse over the corpse to be skinned. This will block the animation and instantly give you the results of the animal harvesting. Keep in mind however that the corpse of the animal will not change in appearance as it normally would once skinned. To avoid confusion, make sure that the animal you're attempting to skin is marked with an "X" on your mini-map to determine whether or not you've skinned it before or not. When faced with multiple targets, and the player wishes to make a quick getaway, this can literally be a life saver.

*Bug Note* Be careful though, position player close (horse <-> player <-> wall ) can result player to fly very high and drop to death. Allthough this is very rare *Bug Note*

Hunting Challenges
Hunting Challenges, which can be done both as part of the single player experience and in multiplayer Free Roam sessions, will reward you for hunting down and killing set amounts of the most dangerous animals. In single-player, John Marston will hunt and skin many animals in his quest to be a Master Hunter.

Exploit: In each of the four locations for the legendary animals, there is a building that you can hide in without being attacked. You can just sit back and fire either through the door or a destroyed section of wall.

Another great trick, a lifesaver when hunting the legendary Jaguar and Bear, is to sit in a stagecoach. Sitting in the driver's seat, shotgun, or the passenger seat in the middle of Tanner's Reach or Bearclaw Camp, or any of the other hunter locations, will cause the animals to come for you, then circle the stagecoach helplessly, making easy targets. The only problem is getting the stagecoach there in the first place...

Achievements and Trophies
There are three Trophies/Achievements that involve the hunting and/or skinning of animals:


 * Bearly Legal: Kill and skin 18 Grizzly Bears.


 * Unnatural Selection: Kill one of every animal species in the game in any mode.
 * Manifest Destiny: Kill the last buffalo in the Great Plains in Single Player.

Sale Rates
The rates vary from town to town along with higher or lower honor levels.