Cognitive semantics embraces that the mappings between domains are at the heart of the unique human cognitive faculty of producing, transferring and processing meaning. So it’s natural and necessary to combine cross-space mappings with animal metaphor translation which aims to produce cognitively appropriate text. This article explores three mapping networks in animal metaphor translation: matching mappings, domesticating mappings and meaning-based mappings. It then postulates that in the process of translating animal metaphors, the translator takes advantage of all three mappings to achieve the most of semantic transferring.