5 Dollars - Elizabeth II 4th Portrait, Pied Cormorant, Silver Proof

Part of New Zealand's native wildlife series issued around the turn of the millennium, this piece coincides with a period when the Reserve Bank was expanding its collector program significantly. The pied cormorant — known in New Zealand as the pied shag — is a coastal species whose populations had recovered markedly through the latter twentieth century following earlier declines tied to deliberate culling by fishing communities who viewed the birds as competition.