How acute is the gray wolf's hearing?

Answer 1

A wolf's hearing is at least 16 times sharper than a human's. Wolves can hear a sound as far as six miles away in the forest and ten miles away in open country.

It is believed that the upper range of a wolfs' hearing is upwards of 80 kHz. The upper range of humans is only 20 kHz. It is stated that a wolf can hear up to 6 miles away in forest and 10 miles in open areas, including some high-pitched sounds that even a human can't hear, in the range where bats and porpoises produce sound. Even when it sleeps, a wolf's ears stand straight up so it can catch sounds made by other animals at all times. This helps the wolf catch prey, and lets it know when danger is near. Their large, pointed ears act like big scoops to catch lots of sound. Unlike humans, wolves can easily tell what direction sound is coming from by turning their ears from side to side. The direction the ears are pointing when the sound is loudest tells the wolf which direction the sound is coming from, which can help them locate rodents under a snow pack.