A few days ago, the journey of an endangered wolf came to a tragic end after she walked nearly 9,000 miles to find her a mate. Her search remained incomplete, unfortunately.
Known to wildlife officials as ‘wolf OR-54’, the grey female wolf traveled through California, Oregon and Nevada in search of a mate but, was out of luck.
A radio collar that was attached to her by officials went silent in December 2019. But, her carcass was located in northern California on 5th February 2020.
Amaroq Weiss, a West Coast wolf advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity said:
When wolves get to one and a half or two years old, they are striking out from their birth pack, they are out there looking for mates and territory of their own. But the fact that OR-54 never found a mate and settled down gives us info that there aren’t a lot of wolves in that area.
Just so you know, on an average a wolf travels 50 to 100 miles to find a mate so, in that sense OR-54’s journey was “extraordinarily long.”
However, authorities are still unsure as to the cause of her death . An investigation has been launched to establish whether she was killed by poachers or she died of natural causes.
Officials say, OR-7, OR-54’s father, was the first wolf to enter California from Oregon in 2011. It was this event that inspired California’s Fish and Game Commission to vote to protect wolves under the state Endangered Species Act in 2014.
While reacting to this tragic news, Defenders of Wildlife senior California representative Pamela Flick said:
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.
People on Twitter also mourned OR-54’s tragic death and this is what they had to say:
According to state officials, there are only 15 to 20 endangered grey wolves living in California now which is truly heartbreaking.