Rwanda's wildlife coin program has used the hyena repeatedly as a subject, though the animal remains chronically underrepresented in African numismatic series relative to the continent's more commercially appealing megafauna. The spotted hyena is native to Rwanda and was historically persecuted to near-local-extinction during the land-clearing that followed the 1994 genocide, when subsistence farming expanded aggressively into former habitat.
Rwanda's wildlife coin program has used the hyena repeatedly as a subject, though the animal remains chronically underrepresented in African numismatic series relative to the continent's more commercially appealing megafauna. The spotted hyena is native to Rwanda and was historically persecuted to near-local-extinction during the land-clearing that followed the 1994 genocide, when subsistence farming expanded aggressively into former habitat.