Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo and Boys Town National Research Hospital have received a grant to study hearing in tigers.

The grant, called Auditory Performance in Tigers, will allow researchers to determine the limits of tiger hearing.

One of the aspects they will focus on is whether or not tigers specialize in low frequency sounds, or if they are hearing generalists, capable of efficiently detecting the range of sounds that make up their acoustic landscape.

The funding will support work being done as part of the larger Omaha Tiger Project in the Institute for the Study of Bioacoustics in Endangered Species (IBES), a partnership between the two local recipients of the grant.

A zoo spokeswoman says, "Because free-ranging tigers are seriously endangered, the primary goal of scientists at the IBES is the development of acoustic tools for use in the fight to save wild tigers."