Bob Sallinger, The Original Portland Coyote Man

Bob Sallinger was an advisor and contributor to the Portland Urban Coyote Project since its inception over a decade ago. He died suddenly on Thursday, October 31, 2024.

By Zuriel van Belle, Project Director

The day before Bob died, he had to skip a Coyote-palooza planning meeting. As we discussed various elements of the event, funding, outreach strategies, and partnerships myself and others in the meeting, as often happened when Bob wasn’t there, said things like, “We’ll need to ask Bob,” “It would be good to know what Bob thinks,” “I’d want Bob’s perspective on that before we make it official,” and “Bob would know!” I deferred to Bob in his absence so much during that meeting that I finally said something like, “Turns out, I’m nothing without Bob.” It was a joke, but I think we all understood what I meant. Bob would know.

Bob was a part of the coyote project from the very beginning and documented the charismatic coyote in Alameda that prompted the first version of our website (a single-page report form created by masters student Jenny Grant, and geography professor and advisor to the project, Barbara Brower). As the project grew, Bob guided us, advised us, warned us, and humored us. He shared with us freely and for the good of the coyotes and the community. He served as a member of my master's thesis committee and provided excellent notes, encouragement, and ideas. During his transition from Bird Alliance to Willamette Riverkeeper, he was beyond generous with his time; staying committed to coyotes among his many, many, many other commitments. At one point, when discussing the project, he said something like, “I want to stick around but I also don’t want to be that old guy hanging on—I only want to stay if you want me to…” I could only laugh and say something like, “Oh my gosh, please never leave us. We definitely want you to stay.”

He was a trusted collaborator and an absolute fount of knowledge—about coyotes, partners, and messaging. His input, advice, and wisdom were indispensable for our project and we, like so many others, have lost a piece of the project we won’t get back.

My last private email to Bob, on Thursday morning, ended with “I’d love your perspective as the original Portland coyote man.” As usual, I was asking him to draw from his wealth of knowledge about coyotes and coyote issues in Portland. Bob was the original Portland coyote man.

Losing Bob will reverberate through the environmental community immeasurably. I know that I am one of the countless many who relied on his depth of knowledge, drive, sensibility, practicality, wisdom, experience, integrity, and humor. I hoped to learn so much more from Bob.

Our deepest condolences go out to Bob’s family, to his friends, to his colleagues, and to our whole community.