One endangered gray wolf's incredible journey has ended in tragedy.

A lone female wolf had traveled more than 8,700 miles in nearly two years through California, Oregon and Nevada in search of a mate before her radio collar went silent in December 2019, The New York Times reported. Then, California Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists received an influx of data from her collar indicating she had stopped moving in California's Shasta County. On Feb. 5, they located her. "Unfortunately, what they found was her carcass," department spokeswoman Jordan Traverso told The New York Times.

The female, named OR-54, was an important symbol for the return of wolves to California. Her father, OR-7, was the first wolf to enter California in around 100 years when he crossed south from Oregon in 2011. The event helped inspire California's Fish and Game Commission to vote to protect wolves under the state Endangered Species Act in 2014, The Washington Post pointed out. OR-7 returned to Oregon to establish the Rogue Pack, but his offspring, who was fitted with a radio collar in Oregon in 2017, headed south again on Jan. 24, 2018 when she crossed into California to begin her journey. She spent most of the next two years in the state, despite two return trips to Oregon and one sojourn to Nevada. In California, she wandered through Butte, Lassen, Modoc, Nevada, Plumas, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou, Shasta and Tehama counties, The Sacramento Bee reported. As of December, she had traveled at least 8,712 miles, averaging 13 miles a day.

"After the arduous journey wolves have had to get back to California, the loss of any wolf is a step back for wolf recovery," Defenders of Wildlife senior California representative Pamela Flick said in a statement. "OR-54 traveled more than 8,700 miles, from Oregon to California and even into Nevada and was a symbol of hope for the next generation of wolves."