I am using the latest MSFS 2024 Beta. I wanted to try to see some animals. So I put together a flight that went right over two South Africa game preserves and then set fauna to Ultra. I never saw an animal.

What's the trick?

Thanks.

3 hours ago, Rob G said:

I am using the latest MSFS 2024 Beta. I wanted to try to see some animals. So I put together a flight that went right over two South Africa game preserves and then set fauna to Ultra. I never saw an animal.

What's the trick?

Thanks.

I chased a herd of elephants and Wilder beast through the Okavango Delta, of Botswana in a Helo. But it was after the rainy season when the migrations were moving towards the open water. They don't stay still for long, always moving.

There's slider for fauna density in settings.

I constantly see animals that I don't want to see.

European Bison in the alps???

These guys are extinct in Central Europe.

There is only a tiny population in the middle of Germany.

To see them in the wild you need to go to Belarus.

Not the Austrian or German Alps...

13 hours ago, Farlis said:

I constantly see animals that I don't want to see.

European Bison in the alps???

These guys are extinct in Central Europe.

There is only a tiny population in the middle of Germany.

To see them in the wild you need to go to Belarus.

Not the Austrian or German Alps...

Search for the Wilder Blean Project - a herd of bison is currently thriving near Canterbury in the UK.

7 hours ago, flyingscampi said:

Search for the Wilder Blean Project - a herd of bison is currently thriving near Canterbury in the UK.

Be that as it may they don't roam the Alpine Zones of Italy, Austria or Germany.

It feel Like they should be replaced with chamois instead.

In the early days of MSFS2024, the consensus was to turn Fauna off as it was seen to be a big resource hog, pardon the pun. I don't know if that has improved with subsequent SU's but I never turned it back on again. I've also never seen any images or videos to make me want to enable it again.

Make sure fauna is turned on in msfs settings

1 hour ago, St Mawgan said:

In the early days of MSFS2024, the consensus was to turn Fauna off as it was seen to be a big resource hog, pardon the pun. I don't know if that has improved with subsequent SU's but I never turned it back on again. I've also never seen any images or videos to make me want to enable it again.

I was of the same impression and I also turned fauna off. I'm not sure I've noticed any performance difference though but at least we have the choice, I guess.

I'm not certain, but I think the fauna is like the default shipping: you have to be close enough before any animals appear.

That said, I haven't seen much of any animals. But once when I landed in the middle of the South Australian outback, and had the avatar out and walking around just to take a look, a herd of wild cgi horses, maybe half a dozen or more, came thundering over the hill and past me. Although all cqi grey in colour, and maybe not that realistic looking, still it was kind of a startling moment, what with pounding hooves and dust clouds rising up (I had Fauna set to Ultra).

So the fauna are there if you happen to be in the right place at the right time, and I guess close enough for them to appear.

There are a few photo challenges to get pics of animals that spawn you near the fauna. Maybe try these to verify fauna is showing up anywhere, it's always possible the latest SU beta broke something.

Edited August 3Aug 3 by Funky D

If you fly helicopters around in MSFS2024, you will see fauna. Probably due to lower altitudes and slower speeds, but they are there and fairly common to encounter in a helo. Of course, they usually take off running from the rotor blade slap 😁

I am NOT in the beta, just fyi.

Edited August 4Aug 4 by sniper31

It looks like a soon coming new version of Chaseplane will have a fauna spotter.

6:47 in video

Since installation I’ve had fauna set to max. I see moose everywhere in the PNW. But the reason I keep it at max is because I absolutely love flying my Hughes low and slow over Jurassic park. All kinds of dinosaurs with sound too. I hope you get this worked out. It’s neat to see moose get frightened of the helo and run away like real life.

On 8/5/2026 at 8:03 PM, Fielder said:

It looks like a soon coming new version of Chaseplane will have a fauna spotter.

6:47 in video

Looks like we have already that feature lol

And someone wants to copy

Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

FSExplore by Mamu Designs - user-editable multi-user hiki...

Thanks for the thread, so let’s make this the official one, shall we? fsExplore — Full Edition The complete companion platform for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. Land your aircraft and keep going

I saw camels casually hanging out by the hold short line in Cairo (of course) and some Central African airport whose name escapes me now had some bison or similar wandering around the taxiways. That’s about the only time I’ve ever seen fauna in the sim but I’m a strictly heavy metal kinda guy.