Bob Sallinger

By Barbara Brower, Project Advisor

We lost a friend this week, an irreplaceable friend. 

Without Bob Sallinger, there would be no Portland Urban Coyote Project.  Although he is probably best known for his work with peregrine falcons and other birds, Bob knew pretty much everything there is to know about coyotes and human-coyote interactions in the Portland Metro area. We discovered this when we connected with Bob 14 years ago. 

Quite suddenly, in November of 2010, coyotes showed up in my Portland neighborhood, dozing in driveways, napping in intersections, strolling around the neighborhood. Their presence was a shock to me and my neighbors, and fascinated my grad student Jenny Grant, fresh from work with Montana wolves. Bob Sallinger, then Conservation Director at Portland Audubon, became our guide and coach as we began to gather and map neighborhood coyote sightings (enlisting the help of second graders at Alameda Elementary, and tapping neighborhood lists in the days before NextDoor). He taught the neighborhood about urban coyotes, in an intimate home-based session and a community meeting at Grant High School. With slides and his inimitable delivery, he managed to calm the fearful and caution the over enthusiastic, teaching the tools we needed to manage human-coyote interactions in the city.

He helped us make the transition from an improvised coyote-sightings map project to the full-blown Portland Urban Coyote Project we have today. He was mentor, collaborator, and partner, who somehow managed to give countless hours and ideas to our coyote project while engineering the development of this country’s largest and most influential Audubon affiliate, and standing in the vanguard of every battle to protect Oregon’s wild nature. We did sometimes have to plan our coyote events around bedtimes, because in addition to being a warrior for Earth, Bob Sallinger, from what I can tell, was a terrific dad. Was all of that effort, so much urgent action calling on him from all sides, too much for one man? Maybe.  
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For 70+ years I have had a ringside seat on the environmental movement; through family connections I’ve known many of its heroes.  Bob Sallinger will always be one of those heroes, among the greatest. I weep now for his family, for his friends and collaborators like us at PUCP, and for all of us who have lost a real champion for nature and wildness at a time when we really can’t afford that loss.  Goodbye Bob, and thanks! You certainly did your part, but boy do we miss you now.