The Digital Collections Center is proud to announce their first physical exhibit. The display includes beautiful wildlife photography from “The Furman Cougar Project” digital collection as well as animal skulls and a stop-motion camera.  The Furman Cougar Project began in 2008 as an effort to monitor and research cougars in south-central New Mexico.  Each summer Furman University Biology professor, Dr. Travis Perry, and his students travel to Sierra County New Mexico to photograph and track the large wild cats.  The research team sets up a grid of cameras in key locations that are programmed to snap a photograph of any movement.  The cameras help the team identify potential locations of the cougars.  When a cougar’s location is identified, the team then safely captures, tags, and collars it with a GPS locator.  In this way, they are able to track the movements and hunting patterns of the cougars.

This digital collection contains more than just pictures of cougars, however. Because the cameras are set to photograph every movement, there are images of a wide assortment of wildlife.  Everything from skunks, to boars, to bears, to humans appear in the photographs.

The Digital Collections Center partnered with Dr. Perry in the creation of this unique digital collection to support his instruction and research.  The phyical exhibit, located outside the Center on the lower level of the James B. Duke Library, highlights just a few of the wonderful photographs from this collection. To see all of the images included in The Furman Cougar Project, as well as explore dozens of other digital collections, visit libguides.furman.edu/digital-collections/collections.