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A turkey, howling wolf, and turtle, which are symbols of the Delaware people, appear on the 2013 Delaware Treaty of 1778 Native American Dollar. It’s one of many United States coins depicting wildlife.
By Joshua McMorrow-Hernandez - September 4, 2024
Original link: https://www.pcgs.com/news/honoring-national-wildlife-day-with-united-states-coins
National Wildlife Day is celebrated every September 4 in the United States… Ah, but if it seems like the “last” National Wildlife Day was not as far back as the previous September, you’d be right. The holiday, launched in 2005 by animal behaviorist and philanthropist Colleen Paige, now is celebrated twice a year. February 22 is also now recognized as National Wildlife Day in honor of the day late animal ambassador Steve Irwin, widely known as “The Crocodile Hunter,” was born. And there are plenty of ways to celebrate this semi-annual holiday, including by way of United States coin.
Think about all the wonderful coins out there depicting wildlife. There are just too many to count, even among only United States coinage, which has added multitudes of wildlife-themed coins since the late 1990s and early 2000s. Still, if we look at U.S. coins alone, it’s easy to make the case that wildlife has been depicted on the nation’s coins pretty much since the beginning of federal coinage. The bald eagle serves as the national bird of the United States, and it’s a popular patriotic mascot that has appeared on U.S. coins since the 1790s.
Another candidate for wildlife on U.S. coins (pre-1990s) is the American bison, famously dubbed a “buffalo” and seen on the U.S. five cent coins from 1913 through 1938. The Buffalo Nickel is certainly one of the most popular 20th-century coins. And its depiction of a buffalo – er, bison – hearkens to the frontier days of the 19th century, when the large land mammal was once a common sight on the lands of the western-expanding United States.
Meanwhile, the expansion of the nation’s coin programs in the latter part of the 20th century, including the revival of United States commemorative coinage in 1982 and the release of the 50 State Quarters beginning in 1999 opened a numismatic window on the world of nature. An entire menagerie of creatures great and small have appeared on U.S. coins just in the last couple of decades thanks to these and other newfangled coin programs. Among these animals are horses, pelicans, cows, fish, bears, bats, butterflies, wolves, turtles, turkeys, and more. National Wildlife Day is a terrific opportunity to search through the rich catalog of U.S. coins, available for free on PCGS CoinFacts, and look for these and so many other enchanting creatures on the nation’s diverse coins. |
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