By Francesca “Frankie” Silverstein
Portlanders have some unusual neighbors—neighbors that tend to come out at night. Their eerie calls echo as the sun sets and their impact is seen in the telephone poles covered in tattered lost pets posters. Coyotes have moved in, and Portlanders are left to deal with the fallout.
However, the appearance of these canines isn’t sudden; coyote sightings in Portland go back to at least the 1980s. According to the Portland Urban Coyote Project (PUCP), a community science group that tracks sightings, the past decade has seen over 17,000 community-reported sightings, submitted through their website, portlandcoyote.com. Project Director Zuriel van Belle explains, “If you live in SE Portland, you live near coyotes,” adding that this rings true for all Portlanders. While PUCP can only guess about the number of coyotes, they estimate there are around 75-190 in Portland proper and about 3,340-8,690 in the metro area.
The survival of such a large population is partially due to coyotes’ adaptability. They can den in a variety of natural settings and their diet ranges from rodents to fruits to pet food—and in some cases, pets. They also possess strong self-preservation instincts; coyotes are skittish and rarely attack humans. In fact, there are only two confirmed fatal coyote attacks in the US.
On the other hand, coyote-pet relations have proven to be a little trickier to navigate. For many Portlanders, it’s a story they know all too well: a cat or dog is put outside only to never return. This is a fate co-owner of local photography business Mirifoto, Darka Dusty’s dog narrowly escaped. On Monday, May 20, Dusty and her husband let their dogs out after coming home from a gig. Suddenly, they noticed Kenny Doggins was missing. She recalls, “It’s 1:30 in the morning, and I’m yelling, Kenny, Kenny!” Miraculously, a neighbor had picked him up, but not before he was attacked by three coyotes. X-rays showed he had a cracked spine, a hernia and over 100 puncture wounds.
Kenny made a complete recovery and Dusty remains positive, stating, “I just really was grateful…and I never got upset with the coyotes.” She’s no stranger to coyotes as a result of living near Mt. Scott’s forests and explains, “You have to live in harmony with these wild, beautiful creatures.” Now she’s a self-proclaimed “safety mom” to her dogs and makes loud noises to scare off coyotes, which is one of the most effective methods of deterring them. Acting big and keeping pets on leashes are other ways to prevent attacks.
Although the actual threat coyotes pose is limited, and efforts can be taken to keep pets safe, habituation or bold behavior in coyotes is generally associated with conflict; 26 percent of the people who reported a coyote sighting to PUCP felt negatively about the experience. PUCP aims to combat this through education.
Their most recent effort to do so was hosting the first annual Coyote-palooza, Saturday, June 1, with Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Bird Conservation Oregon, Institute for Natural Resources, Willamette Riverkeeper and the Humane Society of the United States as co-hosts. Van Belle explains, “We all got together and thought it would be a great idea to have a street fair-style education event, so that people from all over Portland, ideally, could come and learn about coyotes.” Booths offering information on coyote identification, biology and safety were set up on the North Parks Blocks next to the Portland State University Farmers Market.
The event was a roaring success with around 1,000 attendees. People were especially interested in PUCP’s research and van Belle remarks, “It was great to see people dig a little deeper into what we found and what their neighborhood looks like according to our data.” This research is available online through PUCP’s virtual sightings map.
One of the most popular booths was a DIY hazing can station. “Hazing” refers to scaring coyotes to re-train them into being afraid of humans. A hazing or rattle can is one method, but you can also shout, wave your arms or blow a whistle. Here’s a how-to for a rattle can from PUCP:
Find a coffee can, oatmeal can or other metal container with a lid. Fill the can with rocks, coins or anything else that will make a loud clanging noise when it hits the sides of the can. Use duct tape to secure the top of the can. Shake the can vigorously when a coyote is too close to you or your home.
While hazing is an effective method of keeping coyotes wary, it’s not going to get rid of them completely. A common misconception is that coyotes are just passing through; in reality, cities are now one of their main habitats. Van Belle states, “They are in pretty much every continental US city that I’m aware of.”
It seems that coyotes are the one neighbor local homeowners associations can’t shake, so Portlanders—and city-goers nationwide—must learn to coexist with them. As van Belle puts it, “They’re going to be our neighbor either way, but they can be a really cool neighbor that we can celebrate as long as we follow the basics.” The most welcoming thing you can do for this set of neighbors is to not be welcoming at all. Keeping coyotes wild will benefit both coyotes and humans in the long run.
A coyote lounges in a backyard next to a child’s play structure. Once viewed as a hallmark of urban life, the presence of coyotes has shifted backyards into an extension of the wild. Photo by Mark Wyckoff.
I think we should all realize that man has invaded their space and not the other way around. Embrace them. They are beautiiful animals.
I disagree, and I doubt you’d feel that way if you had cougars running around your streets and regularly attacking you and killing your family members. Coyotes invade cities because of all the food waste, and now it’s gotten out of hand as they are constantly killing small dogs and (especially) cats on the Eastside. We shouldn’t have to lock our pets up in the heart of the city because wild predators are waiting to kill them. Vicious predators just don’t belong in densely populated areas, and I think it would make sense for both coyotes and humans if we figured out a humane means of removing them to more suitable environments (of which there are plenty).