There are more animals farther away from humans. You'll not find as many in Driik. Also, if you wander back and forth about an area, or in circles, you're more likely to find animals than if you just go in a straight line.
I know that. I lived on the edge of Reemi, and would look for animals in no man's land, but there still weren't too many of them...
Maybe it's possible to modify spawn rates or something, so there is X times more of all animals, or certain types of them?
Or how about leaving food on the ground? Maybe it would attract animals, and give me a better chance of stumbling onto an animal or their tracks if I checked those locations regularly?
If you want, you can use cheat engine and freeze the value that indicates when you've climbed to the top of a tree, when used on the overworld map it'll show you where animals are at a far greater distance and frequency. I'll post a screenshot in a bit.
left image shows your vision normally. right image shows it with the 'is in tree' value set. i moved around a little to see if i could find anything quickly.
depending on where you are on the map, season, time of day, and stats, you'll see more or less animals
urw.exe+5F97DAA is the address, freeze to 1.