Are forest reindeer supposed to be afraid of escaping into water?

[More_tribal_interaction]

Unsure if it's a bug. Met a herd of forest reindeer that included 2 calves, chased them into mire terrain, with lots of pools of water. Isolated one doe and one calf at a curved piece of land that was almost fully surrounded by water. The 2 animals didn't run across the short stretch of water to the other side. I remember in a previous patch, the animal behaviour was changed so that they could escape across water, to make hunting more challenging.

Is it because the calf couldn't cross the water body? But it wasn't a large river, just a pool of water in a mire.

Anyone else notice this? What about other animals like elks?

[Ara D.]

I have not seen deer elk or other herbivores cross water to escape. I have seen wolves when aggressive cross water to attack me. I educated guess is things will cross water when aggressive to attack, but not when fleeing.  All animals seem to be able and willing to cross ice

[More_tribal_interaction]

Well then so it's not just me. I definitely remember in a previous version animals like elk had been modified to escape into water when pursued by the player. I don't remember if forest reindeer were supposed to have been modified to escape into water too. Anyway, can Sami comment on this? Are the animals supposed to escape into water or not? That's definitely what a real life animal would do (refer to National geog documentaries etc).

Also, referring to a previous post, why are there bull elks but no bull forest reindeer?

[Signatus]

Both male and female reindeers grow antlers, while only male elks do. I think I read on a changelog that there were no more reindeer stags, and the distinction between male and female reindeer was no longer made, but I might be wrong

[JEB Davis]

I think you're right, Signatus. Probably because for purposes of food, hides, and antlers there is no difference between male & female in the game.

[Saiko Kila]

Well then so it's not just me. I definitely remember in a previous version animals like elk had been modified to escape into water when pursued by the player. I don't remember if forest reindeer were supposed to have been modified to escape into water too. Anyway, can Sami comment on this? Are the animals supposed to escape into water or not? That's definitely what a real life animal would do (refer to National geog documentaries etc).

Also, referring to a previous post, why are there bull elks but no bull forest reindeer?

I don't remember animals escaping into water - certainly neither in v3.40 (where I played most) nor in v3.18. I use technique of cornering them in the marshes, and they try only to dart past my character when no other way, but never into water.

As for bull elks, they are just renamed stags from before v3.50, which were in the game for years. The stags were always to represent bull elks, and normal elks were to represent females (or adolescents) anyway, with difference in average size (stag elks were 300 kg on average, elks were 250 kg on average), and with difference in skin size. As far as I can say now, bull elks are identical to former stags. I think I saw the information about this renaming on Steam news.

Also I'm not sure that real life elks would escape into unknown water, if they don't have to (and in the game usually they don't, because they can run past you). Sure, they can travel on the bottom of lakes and the like, but they prefer to take cover in the forest and run, because they can do it much faster than in water if need be (6x faster). I have seen real two elks near my home in December (there was a third, a calf, reported nearby), and there is a kind of marsh, and they were escaping (after first staying still for 5 minutes) not into the marsh, but in the forest, though rather slowly.

Anyway, it would be more challenging, but I haven't seen it in the game.

[Sami]

It's been mentioned in changelog of version 3.19:

 - added: aggressive/escaping animals and NPCs can wade through shallow water

...which is only reference I quickly found regarding this situation. However, checking out the code it seems like escaping animals are not allowed to escape into the water, even if its shallow - like at marshes. So a feature, or its intention, has been misplaced or mystically disappeared somewhere along the line.
This might be because direct allowance of animals escaping into shallow water would make them not to weight the options, as dry land if available would be always safer.
For the feature to return, I need to add some consideration about when the situation is desperate enough for the animals to choose their route through the water.