2 Dollars - Elizabeth II Yellow Crowned Parakeet

Part of a Cook Islands wildlife series that leaned heavily on the country's association with Pacific biodiversity, this issue was produced for the collector market rather than circulation — Cook Islands had long used such programs as a revenue mechanism, licensing designs through foreign minting agencies. The Yellow Crowned Parakeet (Cyanoramphus auriceps) is native to New Zealand's forests, not the Cook Islands themselves, a geographic looseness that was entirely routine for this type of sovereign-licensed commemorative.