Cook Islands issued a substantial run of wildlife-themed silver dollars throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, largely targeting the collector market rather than circulation. The bee hummingbird — endemic to Cuba and the smallest bird on earth — had no particular connection to the Cook Islands or the Pacific, which tells you exactly what this series was: a sovereign mint leveraging foreign wildlife imagery to sell to topical collectors worldwide.
Cook Islands issued a substantial run of wildlife-themed silver dollars throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, largely targeting the collector market rather than circulation. The bee hummingbird — endemic to Cuba and the smallest bird on earth — had no particular connection to the Cook Islands or the Pacific, which tells you exactly what this series was: a sovereign mint leveraging foreign wildlife imagery to sell to topical collectors worldwide.