100 Tenge Qulan

The qulan — Central Asian wild ass, Equus hemionus onager — was functionally extinct in Kazakhstan by the mid-twentieth century due to hunting and habitat loss, with the population reduced to a few hundred animals before conservation efforts began reversing the decline. Kazakhstan's ongoing wildlife series has used circulating commemorative coinage as a vehicle for domestic conservation awareness since the 1990s, and the qulan appears here as part of that broader program. KM#533 is struck in nickel silver rather than cupronickel, a material choice that gives the finished coin a noticeably cooler, brighter surface than earlier issues in the series.