10 Pesos Wood Duck

Cuba's wildlife coin program of the 1990s was driven largely by hard currency demand — the peso was inconvertible, and collector issues like this one were priced and sold exclusively in foreign markets to generate dollar revenue during the Special Period, the severe economic contraction that followed the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. These pieces never circulated domestically in any meaningful sense.

The North American Wood Duck (*Aix sponsa*) appears as a Cuban subject because it winters in the Caribbean, making it a legitimate regional species rather than an arbitrary choice.