Wilkes has wily new residents

TribTown • Highwood area of neighborhood wonders what to do about pack

By Nick Budnick

The Portland Tribune, Feb 5, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (8 Reader comments)

JIM CLARK / TRIBUNE PHOTO

Ross Monn, standing in the greenway behind his home where he regularly sees coyotes, says he hasn’t had much luck seeking help from government agencies on what to do about his new, four-legged neighbors.

It’s not uncommon that homeowners feel trepidation about their new neighbors. Will they be nice? How’s their hygiene? Will they take care of their lawn?

But that fear has a new twist in the Highwood area of outer Northeast Portland’s Wilkes neighborhood, where the new neighbors are neither friendly nor particularly well-groomed.

In fact – and at the risk of being rude – they live like animals.

“They’re very brazen,” Ross Monn says. “They walk down the middle of the street in broad daylight. … People find them in their front yards all the time. … People sitting in their hot tubs will have them walk right by.”

Nor do they mind their own business.

“I go out at night and turn out the light, and I see these two bright green eyes staring at me,” adds Monn, who is chairman of the Wilkes Community Group.

The intruders, a pack of coyotes that moved in during August, have sparked fears from residents, mainly for people’s pets.

The issue has divided the neighborhood between those who want the newbies treated humanely and those who just want them gone.

“I have a list of people who have offered to put in money to eradicate them,” Monn said. But, he adds,“Some people are up in arms that they don’t want them hurt.”

To help educate people about the new neighbors, the Wilkes group will screen a documentary about urban coyotes and host a guest speaker from the Audubon Society of Portland at its Feb. 12 meeting.

The meeting starts at 7 p.m. at the Teamsters complex, Joe Edgar Hall, 1850 N.E. 162nd Ave.

It’s not ‘coyote ugly’

Monn said the coyotes probably were forced to the Wilkes neighborhood by the construction of two new warehouses in neighboring Gresham, just to the east.

He said the neighborhood has reached out to government agencies to help with the coyotes.

“But, unfortunately, there’s no agency that will help us. The county doesn’t want to have anything to do with it.”

The state, he says, merely referred him to a list of trappers. But Monn was surprised to learn that under state law, any animal trapped must be killed. They cannot be relocated.

That bothers Monn: “Everyone knows it’s not their fault. I mean, we’re taking their habitat.”

Even before seeing the movie, the residents already have tested some of the urban myths about coyotes.

For instance, contrary to their portrayal in popular culture and movies, they are not ugly. In person, “They’re so pretty!” says Monn’s neighbor, D Ann Melland.

Other media portrayals are more accurate: Coyotes are, in fact, very wily. Many of the trappers Monn contacted declined to talk to him about the animals, saying coyotes are “very evasive,” he says.

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