1 Lira Turkish Kangal Dog

Turkey's wildlife coin program, launched in the early 2000s, used the circulating bimetallic lira format to spotlight native fauna — a deliberate soft-power move following the 2005 redenomination that replaced the catastrophically inflated old lira at a rate of one million to one. The Kangal, bred for millennia in the Sivas region to guard livestock against wolves and bears, was granted legal protection by the Turkish government in 1973 specifically to prevent export of breeding stock, which had become a point of quiet diplomatic friction with foreign buyers.