In order for a new wolf cub to urinate, its mother has to massage its belly with her warm tongue.

Wolves do not make good guard dogs because they are naturally afraid of the unfamiliar and will hide from visitors rather than bark at them.

Wolves are the largest members of the Canidae family, which includes domestic dogs, coyotes, dingoes, African hunting dogs, many types of foxes, and several kinds of jackals.

A wolf pup’s eyes are blue at birth. Their eyes turn yellow by the time they are eight months old.

Wolves run on their toes, which helps them to stop and turn quickly and to prevent their paw pads from wearing down.

Wolves have about 200 million scent cells. Humans have only about 5 million. Wolves can smell other animals more than one mile (1.6 kilometers) away.

Wolf gestation is around 65 days. Wolf pups are born both deaf and blind and weigh only one pound.

Under certain conditions, wolves can hear as far as six miles away in the forest and ten miles on the open tundra.

The North American gray wolf population in 1600 was 2 million. Today the population in North America is approximately 65,000. The world population is approximately 150,000.

A hungry wolf can eat 20 pounds of meat in a single meal, which is akin to a human eating one hundred hamburgers.