How well can whitetails hear? Recent research uncovered facts all hunters should know.
It’s a common story among bowhunters; a barely audible sound, perhaps an arrow scraping against its rest on the bow was heard by a deer and ended what could have been a successful hunt. Surely an animal that can detect such faint noises must have almost supernatural hearing ability. Does it?
When you add that incredible hearing ability to the deer’s incredible sense of smell, it’s no wonder whitetails are among the most difficult big-game animals to harvest with archery equipment since the hunter has to be within easy “hearing” distance of the quietest sounds. While there is ample evidence to support the whitetail’s incredible sense of smell, until recently little was known regarding their sense of hearing.
Thanks to a landmark study by researchers at the University of Georgia, hunters now have a much better understanding of what deer can hear.
Everyone knows sounds vary from extremely deep, low sounds to high, screechy sounds and from whisper quiet to eardrum-shaking loudness. There are a couple other things you need to know as well. Humans can hear a range of sounds, but some animals can hear sounds outside the hearing range of humans. Ever heard of a dog whistle?
Supposedly, it tweets a sound higher than what you or I can hear but Rover can easily hear it. That may be the case, but if you rely on a dog whistle to get the attention of Rover, make sure to blow it loudly. Low sounds travel much farther through the atmosphere than high sounds. That’s why when you hear loud, distant music, you are much more likely to hear the low base sounds than the high notes.
Back to the deer. The researchers, using fenced in deer aged one to four, were able to send out sounds from very low to dog whistle high and at varying loudness levels. Then using electrodes implanted in the each deer’s head, they were able to measure the brain activity which occurred when those sounds were made. In other words, they could tell if the deer was hearing a sound, whether it reacted to it or not.
They learned a deer can hear any sound a human with normal hearing can hear. If you can hear leaves rattling as you walk through the woods, so can the deer. If you can hear the arrow scraping on your bow’s arrow rest, so can the deer. In keeping with how far sounds travel, however, the low sounds of footsteps on a path will likely be able to be heard farther away than the arrow scraping sounds.
They also found that though deer don’t hear amazingly low sounds any more than humans, they can easily hear dog-whistle high sounds far beyond the ability of humans to detect. Don’t take any dog whistles with you when hunting!
This study only detailed the range of a whitetail’s hearing ability. It wasn’t focused on how loud a sound needed to be to be heard. But hunters should never forget a deer can actually hear sounds better than humans. Back to the scrape of an arrow on a bow’s rest. A hunter can hear it up close, for sure, and maybe as far as 10 feet away. It would be hard to hear for a human to hear it from 10 yards away.
To a deer, with ears about 10 times larger than a humans and with the ability to rotate those ears make them “point” at the direction a sound originates, expect them to be able to hear a noise easily when, to a human, it would be impossible to detect. There’s more.
While a deer’s overall hearing ability is not much different than ours, they are far more “in-tune” with their surroundings because their survival depends on the use of their senses to detect potential predators far enough in advance to escape unharmed. They are constantly listening and focusing on the sounds in their environment. Consistently successful hunters know this and understand remaining silent is an important aspect of every hunt.
FAQs
Henry Heffner at the University of Toledo shows that deer can hear upwards of 54,000 hertz (humans hear up to 20,000 hertz, if lucky). Translation: You make noises you may not even know you're making, but deer can hear them clear as a bell.
How many times better can a deer hear than a human? ›
A deers hearing is stronger than it's eyesight, and probably ten times stronger than a humans. Deer can actually turn their ears independent of their head, and 'focus' their hearing in a specific direction.
What is the hearing range of a deer? ›
Deer hear within a broader range of frequencies than we do. A deer's best hearing range is from 0.25 kHz to 30 kHz while humans max out around 20 kHz according to research at the University of Georgia Deer Lab. This means deer have the ability to hear certain high frequency sounds that humans cannot.
How many decibels can a deer hear? ›
From these data it appears that the deer had the greatest hearing sensitivity between 1 and 8 kHz, with a peak sensitivity at 4 kHz and a range from 0.5 to 12 kHz (at 85 dB).
How far can deer hear and smell? ›
Instead, you have to be aware of how far away a deer can smell you and have the potential to be concerned by the smell. In many cases, this distance is around a half a mile away. For our metric friends, that's more than three-quarters of a kilometer.
What is a deer's strongest sense? ›
And that's not all; deer can detect faint and intense sounds alike, but they can also hear frequencies higher than we can. But perhaps the most important sense to deer is smell, or olfaction. It is undoubtedly why anyone wanting to get close to a deer must take into account both the wind direction and one's own scent.
How far away can a deer hear you rattling? ›
The “Katie Clancy Rattling-Volume Test” revealed that rattling devices could, on average, be heard 512 yards downwind and 223 yards upwind; or 2.3 times farther downwind than upwind.
Can a deer hear a dog whistle? ›
They also found that though deer don't hear amazingly low sounds any more than humans, they can easily hear dog-whistle high sounds far beyond the ability of humans to detect. Don't take any dog whistles with you when hunting!
Does peanut butter attract deer? ›
Deer will smell it and come up to lick it. Keep in mind that other critters relish peanut butter just as deer do. Raccoons especially are fond of peanut butter and are adept at getting to things good to eat.
What color can deer not see? ›
Deer are essentially red-green colorblind like some humans. Their color vision is limited to the short (blue) and middle (green) wavelength colors. As a result, deer likely can distinguish blue from red, but not green from red, or orange from red.
Research tells us deer have extra sensitivity to ultraviolet light, which makes blue jeans highly visible to them.
What frequency attracts deer? ›
Although deer can hear ultrasonic sounds, their hearing is most sensitive to moderate frequencies between 4,000 to 8,000 hertz.
Can you hear deer walking in the woods? ›
In the woods, detecting the high-frequency sounds of deer movement can be critical. From hearing a doe and fawn quietly walking behind your stand, to detecting the sound of a buck trotting during the rut, knowing that deer is there or coming, can have the hunter prepared and better positioned for a shot.
Can deer hear a whisper? ›
Deer can quickly distinguish between sounds that represent a threat and those that don't. This explains why deer run away after hearing two hunters whisper, but stay put when hearing two squirrels playing. Deer are in the woods 24/7; they know what does and doesn't belong.
How is a deer's hearing compared to a dog's hearing? ›
Scientifically speaking, dogs can hear between 67-45,000 Hz whereas humans can hear between 64-23,000 Hz. Deer can supposedly hear frequencies of at least 30,000 Hz. Deer's ears are also designed to catch sound waves, and so are dogs' ears. So, it's not surprising that they can both hear extremely well.
Do deer have better hearing than cats? ›
Deer and humans apparently can detect sounds of low-to-moderate frequency at approximately the same intensity. A cat can hear much fainter sounds than either the deer tested or humans across a wide range of frequencies.
