Coyote in FoBW Meadow

On Tuesday August 24, a video of a healthy coyote in the FoBW meadow, was posted on the Nextdoor Cathedral Park website!

Coyotes have long been sighted in our North Portland neighborhoods, but it’s rare to see them during daylight hours! If you get a chance to view the video on the Nextdoor platform, you’ll see the coyote is a beautiful healthy individual who seems a bit uncomfortable in the meadow and at the end of the video, it is vocalizing or trying to communicate with family members, most likely. She could be uncomfortable because she’s strayed out of her normal territory, or lost track of companions.

Coyotes in the city of Chicago have long been studied by wildlife biologist Dr. Stanley Gehrt. Through his research he’s found that in the urban setting, they tend to establish territories for hunting, their chief diet is rodents and rabbits, and they prefer natural areas such as parks, vacant lots or cemeteries, to human concentrated areas.

In our fair city of Portland, the Urban Coyote Project (UCP) is a great source of information on coyote sightings. A collaboration between the PSU Department of Geography and the Audubon Society of Portland, the UCP was established to help understand how coyotes interact within our urban environment. UCP encourages citizen scientists to report the time, day location and behavior of coyote sightings in our city. The website maintains an urban map of coyote sightings, a page for sighting reports, a coyote tutorial, FAQ’s such as “how to act when you encounter a coyote?,” or “how to keep your pets safe?,” photos, and more. A few years ago, a class of second graders at Alameda Elementary in NE Portland mapped all the coyote sightings in their neighborhood. The map was displayed in the hallway all year. Most of the coyotes in that neighborhood had come from a den on the property of the Rose City Cemetery off NE Fremont.

Last year we lost our beloved cat to a coyote, most likely. So I’m offering some tips to keep your pets safe.

1. Keep your pets inside at night.
2. Do not feed coyotes, or in anyway encourage coyote domestication. Befriending wild animals will encourage unsafe encounters with them. There has been only one sad instance of a coyote caused human death to my knowledge. It was a young child in a LA neighborhood where the people were trying to befriend coyotes by feeding them.
3. If a coyote happens to cross your path, make them feel uncomfortable around humans, by making loud noises—a metal can filled with coins has been suggested—and waving your hands to scare them.

People usually love to see these beautiful wild animals when they sporadically appear in our neighborhoods. In fact, most of the commenters for the August 24th posting were delighted by the coyote sighting! As long as we maintain respectable boundaries, we should be able to peacefully co-exist with these gentile and shy, wild creatures. They even offer some nice midnight serenades on occasion!