Study each animal before you hunt them, it can be helpful in most cases, on of the easiest ways is to use the binoculars. Zoom in on the animal and you’re able to study from afar.



Once done, it’ll tell you which weapon and ammo to use to get a perfect pelt, or hide, or skin. It’ll also tell you the quality of the animal; anything less than a pristine, three-star animal and you’ll have no chance of getting a perfect pelt. Studying is the difference between preying and praying.



If you really wanted to, you could set out with just a varmint rifle and a bow, since critical hits with poison arrows work on medium-sized animals and up.

The sniper rifle also works well on all medium-sized animals and up, and a bit of distance can make the job easy. The descriptions of some animals get even more specific sometimes, requesting long-scoped rifles instead of just a normal sniper.

Small animals - such as snakes, squirrels, songbirds, sparrows, chipmunks, toads, bats, rats, ravens, robins, roosters, blue jays, boobies, cardinals, carolina chickens, crows, ducks, gulls, loons, orioles, parrots, parakeets, pheasants, pigeons, quail, waxwings, woodpeckers, and bullfrogs will be killed by one hit from anything. But only a small game arrow will preserve their skins and pelts perfectly.

Moderate animals - include rabbits, jackrabbits, raccoons, skunks, muskrats, iguanas, gila monsters, armadillos, condors, cormorants, cranes, eagles, egrets, geese, hawks, herons, owls, pelicans, possums, spoonbills, turkeys, vultures, and badgers. The only way to get a perfect skin or pelt from these is to use the varmint rifle. Any shot should be fatal, though we’ve had to chase an injured rabbit before.

Medium-sized animals - are where it starts to get tougher. These are your beavers, coyotes, pigs, and foxes. Arrows and throwing knives (normal or poison) are suitable, as well as repeaters, rifles, and sniper rifles.

Large animals - are where repeaters stop working. These are small alligators, boars, bucks, cougars, deer, big horn rams, panthers, goats, wolves, sheep, turtles, pronghorns, and peccaries. Arrows (normal or poison), throwing knives (only poison), rifles, and sniper rifles will do the trick.

Massive animals - include alligators, bears, bison, bulls, cows, moose, elk, and oxen. With this class of animal, the skin/pelt/hide alone will take up your rear horse storage. Improved or poison arrows, poison throwing knives, rifles, and sniper rifles will get you a clean kill. It’s also possible with massive animals to use slug ammo in a shotgun.

Setting out to hunt, you should be stocked up on the following, or plan to grab them in the field:

• Poison arrows
  
• Small game arrows
  
• Improved arrows

You’ll find the recipe for poison arrows at the Fence for $58. You’ll also find the crafting recipe for dynamite arrows there for $85.

After acquiring the recipe from the Fence, you can craft predator bait with fish meat and berries.

Crafting different kinds of arrows requires flight feathers. You can shoot most birds for this. Pop them right out of the sky if you need, then take a knee and craft as many small game/improved arrows as you can.



In addition to flight feathers, poison arrows require Oleander Sage. This plant has tall, five-petal pink flowers, and grows on the riverbanks around Bayou Nwa.

Doing a quick lap for some Oleander Sage is a quick ride from Saint Denis and has some decent hunting along the way. While you’re picking plants you’ll find plenty of alligators to hunt, as well as boar and other animals.

Best Way to Get all 178 Animals: As you play through the story, hunt anything you come across.
Some animals can’t be found until after the story because parts of New Austin are unreachable. After the story, just ride all over the map and get every animal you randomly find.

Complete all stranger missions and collectibles while looking for animals along the way.

Keep in mind some animals are night active (e.g. wolves, bats, owls) while others only spawn at day. Birds can either be sitting or flying and show up at daytime when it’s sunny.

If you cannot find a certain animal in the marked area, make a camp and sleep to advance time or quit out to the main menu and hit continue.

Each time you quit out it cycles through the available animals and you may get new species to show up! Effectively, you can just keep quitting and continuing at the same place to farm lots of different species.



Here is the best animal hunting spot in the game, you can find many types of lot of animals, especially birds. And even more especially owls. You can find all three different owl types at the same location! It’s called Bear Claw, close to Manzanita Post.

They will be either flying or more commonly sitting on the old houses/chimneys (of course, at nighttime).

If you find two at the same time they are always two different ones, it seems! At daytime, you can find woodpeckers, nearly all song birds, ravens/crows, hawks, pheasants, vultures… plus on the ground bears, wolves, coyotes, deer/elk and much more. Just sleep at your portable camp or save, quit to menu, continue, to cycle through the animal spawns.

LEGENDARY ANIMAL MATERIALS

The Legendary Animals challenge tasks you with hunting five legendary animals, but there are a lot more. Almost every type of animal has a legendary version.

The good news is these are actually easier to hunt, in terms of pelt quality. It doesn’t matter what you do, that pelt will always be a legendary pelt. Incendiary/explosive shotgun shells? Go for it. Dynamite arrows? Sure.

Donating materials to Pearson, or selling them to the Trapper, actually just makes them hold onto it for a while until you’re ready to craft with them.

It’s counterintuitive — the idea of selling a legendary pelt or skin to the Trapper, only to buy it back in the form of clothing? It’s odd, but that’s what you do.

Selling the legendary animal materials gets you about $50, which is very nice.

Thankfully, you can’t “lose” the pelts and materials. Just visit the Trapper/Fence and they’ll have what you need. There’s only one of each legendary animal.

And thats pretty much everything you need to know to get ready to hunt.



https://www.fandom.com/articles/rdr2-hunting-guide

https://www.ign.com/wikis/red-dead-redemption-2/Hunting_Tips_and_Strategy

https://www.powerpyx.com/red-dead-redemption-2-all-animal-locations-zoologist-skin-deep/