1000 Manat Amu Darya sturgeon

The Amu Darya sturgeon (Pseudoscaphirhynchus kaufmanni) is endemic to the Amu Darya river basin and had already been pushed to the edge of extinction well before this coin was struck. Soviet-era water diversion projects, principally the irrigation canals feeding Uzbek and Turkmen cotton fields, reduced the Amu Darya to a fraction of its former flow and effectively severed the species' migratory routes decades before international conservation bodies formally listed it as critically endangered.

Turkmenistan issued several wildlife gold pieces in this period as the country began cultivating a limited international collector market under Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow's administration.