I think the only thing that got me were the darn big lizards (forget what they were called). Other than that, no animal hurt me. Bitch, I'm Rambo!
Clip, get a silenced sniper rifle. Dudes wont know what hit 'em! What I did in the beginning was grab a Jeep with the machine gun, parked just outside of the outposts and started shooting like a maniac. That worked about 85% of the time. Having the high ground helps as well.
Is there somewhere to check how many hours I played the game? In the very beginning I was just killing time, taking over outposts, getting the towers and just killing animals to upgrade my weapons/carry-ons. I HATED the damn phone calls every time I Jason called Dennis after I took over a radio/outpost.... I didn't want to do missions at first but dammit, those calls got annoying...
I too give the game a 10/10.