The director of the Biodiversity Foundation, Ana Leiva, today inaugurated the photographic exhibition “The wild gaze. Encounters with Iberian fauna”, at the Museum of Natural Sciences of Valencia. She has done so accompanied by the author of the images, Andoni Canela.

The director of the Biodiversity Foundation, Ana Leiva, today inaugurated the photographic exhibition “The Wild Gaze. Encounters with Iberian fauna”, at the Museum of Natural Sciences of Valencia. She has done so accompanied by the author of the images, Andoni Canela.

The event was also attended by the deputy mayor and delegate councilor for Historical Heritage of the Valencia City Council, Vicente Igual Alandete; the director of the Museum of Natural Sciences, Margarita Belinchón, and the coordinator of the Caja Madrid Social Work in the Valencian Community, José Blanca Bertomeu.

“The Wild Gaze” is the first major exhibition in Spain to celebrate the International Year of Biodiversity. From today until March 21 in the Museum’s galleries, the work of a prestigious nature photographer, Andoni Canela, is on display, determined to discover everyday scenes of some specimens of Iberian fauna in their habitats.

It is an unpublished document that shows the visitor the life of 40 species photographed in a state of absolute freedom and that, on the contrary, hides the complexity of portraying the elusive inhabitants of our nature reserves, without being disturbed, without altering their environment in the slightest.

The selection presented to the public is made up of 80 photographs that represent the diversity of the natural heritage of one of the richest territories on the continent. The tour starts with 45 large images of specimens of Iberian fauna (hand-varnished and mounted on oak wood frames from beams more than three centuries old) and with explanatory panels that account for the places where they have been taken, as well as the state of conservation of each species.

“The Wild Gaze”, which begins its itinerancy in Valencia, with the support of the Biodiversity Foundation and the collaboration of the Obra Social de Caja Madrid and the Valencia City Council, invites the public to enjoy contemplating photographs of bears, lynxes, wolves, capercaillies, foxes, bearded vultures and other emblematic animals, as a first step, in the International Year of Biodiversity, to bring the citizen closer to the richness of the natural heritage and biodiversity that we treasure in Spain. The exhibition will tour, throughout 2010, four other Spanish cities: Zaragoza, Barcelona, Bilbao and Madrid.