25 Cents - Elizabeth II Wood Bison

The wood bison (Bison bison athabascae) had been effectively extinct in the wild by the early twentieth century, reduced to a single herd of under 300 animals near Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. A 1957 survey confirmed the survival of a genetically pure population in a remote corner of Wood Buffalo National Park, which became the foundation for subsequent recovery programs. By 2011, Canadian herds had rebounded to roughly 10,000 animals — a figure that prompted reclassification from "endangered" to "threatened" under Canada's Species at Risk Act.