1000 Bolívares Cock of the Rocks

Issued as part of Venezuela's Conservation series, this piece was struck to raise international awareness and funds for wildlife preservation — an unusual mandate for a national mint. The Cock of the Rocks, Rupicola rupicola, inhabits the tepui highlands of southern Venezuela and Guiana; its inclusion reflected growing anxiety in the 1970s over Amazonian habitat loss, a concern that carried real political weight in Caracas at a time when the oil boom was reshaping the country's relationship with its own interior.

The series was produced in limited quantities for collectors rather than circulation, with the Banco Central coordinating issues through international numismatic distributors.