So I have a Chandra-Fan pathfinder and we had an instance where he had to try to calm some wild animals. We ended up just rolling his survival plus force rating against their willpower upgraded by points in cunning, like a taming check. Are we doing it wrong or does anyone just have any better ideas?

PC's Survival vs Beasts Discipline sounds right. The "Animal Empathy" would be what lets you add your Force Dice, so I assume the PC had that.

As GM I would probably throw some (1-3) situational setback in to the pool depending on time constraints, environment, etc (every roll needs some setback )

For other skill options I think Knowledge Xenology would work, but would require an increased or upgraded difficulty.

Also the Influence power would work, but probably only for a PC with a big Force Rating (3+?) due to the large amount of pips required to pull it off.