500 Tenge Lynx

Kazakhstan's gold wildlife series from this period was issued partly to assert the country's refining credentials — the Kazakhstani mint had recently achieved .9999 fineness capability and used these collector pieces to advertise it. The two inset diamonds representing the lynx's eyes were sourced domestically; Kazakhstan holds significant diamond deposits in the Kostanay region, and the National Bank made a point of using them.

The Eurasian lynx population across Kazakhstan's steppe and mountain zones was already under pressure from habitat fragmentation by 2007, lending the issue a conservation dimension that was deliberate rather than incidental.