Trying to understand why my animal population is so low

I'm having an issue on my server: animal population is really low.

spawn.report says I have "Population: 12/396" for animals (autospawn/animals).

My default spawn convars are:

• spawn.min_rate 1.8
• spawn.max_rate 2
• spawn.min_density 1.8
• spawn.max_density 2
• spawn.player_base 25 (my server is maxes at 50 most nights)
• spawn.player_scale 2

I've tried increasing the values of the convars in various ways, but max animal population seems to be about 30 right after a reboot and 20 or fewer once players have been connected for a while.

I've tried scheduling the command spawn.respawn_populations to execute at various times throughout the day. The number just doesn't seem to change.

All other resources and collectibles stay near their maximum allowed number when I check with spawn.report. Is there an artificial entity cap, over-zealous garbage collector, or some other mechanism at play that I'm not aware of?

Also worth noting if I copy my server to my local PC and run it locally, animals populate to normal levels.

Any ideas? Any advice is appreciated.

 

instal SpawnConfig i have problem with animals when i use voteday plugin. I thinks more animal have spawn in night

 

I appreciate the suggestion, however the particular server I'm having trouble with is a community vanilla server.

 

I've experienced the same issue back when I still had a server. Setting up stuff via a plugin didn't work either (iirc setting high rates decreased fps, but didn't actually increase animal pop).
Would be curious about this as well.