Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) officials have announced that another gray wolf has died. The male gray wolf's collar sent a "mortality signal" on Monday, with CPW confirming Tuesday that the wolf died in Grand County.

This is the third wolf among the first 10 released under Colorado’s voter-approved wolf reintroduction plan to have died.

"While this is sad news, these types of restoration efforts consider anticipated mortalities in our planning and a degree of wolf mortality, just like for any wildlife, is expected both during restoration efforts and on an ongoing basis," CPW Director Jeff Davis said in a statement.

The Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan states that CPW will not relocate wolves with depredation histories into the wild within Colorado.

"The plan also calls for flexibility," said Davis, "and it may not at times account for every unique situation the agency and our experts encounter. This spring, after a pair of wolves established a den in Middle Park, the male adult wolf was involved in multiple depredations. Removing the male at that time, while he was the sole source of food and the female was denning, would likely have been fatal to the pups and counter to the restoration mandate."

This news of a third wolf's death comes days just after CPW announced the death of an adult male in Copper Creek. The wolf was euthanized due to injuries that it sustained on its hind leg.

The first wolf to die from the reintroduction pack was also a male, found in Larimer County back in April. CPW determined that the wolf had been killed by a mountain lion, with puncture wounds to the skull providing evidence of the attack.

"It's awful to hear that another one of Colorado's reintroduced wolves has died," said Alli Henderson, the Center for Biological Diversity's southern Rockies director. "Wolves face daily threats to their survival, and we need these wolves and additional wolves released into the wild to ensure that this historic effort continues to make progress."

Because gray wolves are a federally listed species under the Endangered Species Act, CPW is directly consulting with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about the next steps.

"Wolf survival is highly variable between regions, but three of the 12 wolves in Colorado (10 translocated wolves and two that remained in Colorado) dying in nine months is not cause for alarm and is in line with typical wolf survival," said Travis Duncan, public information officer with CPW.