Large animals wandering out onto ice and dying

[UnfixedCarp803]

So this just happened to me.

I was minding my own business near the North-Western coast, because I built my house there and I am also Seal Tribe. On the tile next to my settlement on the wilderness map there was a stag so I traveled over to try to kill it. When I got there it wasn't there so I checked the map again. This time it was on the same wilderness tile as my settlement. I went over and it wasn't near my home so I walked around near the frozen coast when I saw the stag. It walked onto the ice and fell through and died. I just got a free stag fur and a bunch of meat to smoke along with my store already.

So what I am wondering is if anyone else has had a similar experience.

P.S. For some reason, I don't know if I am just lucky or what, but there seems to be a herd of forest reindeer that hang out around my home before winter so I also got like 4 or 5 of them with javelins.

[LoLotov]

I've never been lucky enough to be there to see it happen, but scavenging along the edges of just-frozen-enough-to-walk-on lakes and rivers can be a good (if unreliable) food source when you start in winter. The cold temperature preserves the corpse, the only difference age will make is how many cuts of meat had the chance to be eaten by wild animals before you perform your butchery.

[koteko]

I've also seen a villager drowned into a mini-puddle near his building. I grabbed his leftovers, but sadly I still had to pay for his stuff to his friends

[PALU]

It's not uncommon for animals to walk out onto the ice, fall through, and eventually drown, and you can use it as a hunting tactic by scaring the animal away from the shore. You need to take some care to ensure you don't fall through yourself, though, when recovering the remains. I typically gather a pile of branches (in case I do fall through) at the shore, drop everything carried, and then crawl out on my belly to the corpse. I then pull it to me, drop it, crawl a tile back, pull,... until my character is finally at the shore, at which time I can start the butchering.

[spamgoose]

Yea domesticated animals are also not immune. I lost 2 cows once when I had a tiny gap in my fence I missed. Followed their tracks out to the ice where they had fallen through and drowned. I also accidently killed an NPC party member once by telling him he could go home... when he promptly walked onto some ice and drown.

When using poor ice for hunting, I generally just use a raft and break ice holes out to the carcass. Time-consuming, but safe.