Sneaky coyote scares pair of Westlake girls

By Cliff Newell

The Lake Oswego Review, Mar 11, 2010 (3 Reader comments)

Almost everyone in Lake Oswego and West Linn has a coyote sighting story, but an incident happened last Friday afternoon that was scarier than most.

Two 10-year-old girls, Juliana Sahni and Sarah May-Varas, were playing in the backyard of the Sahni family’s home in the Westlake neighborhood when a coyote suddenly confronted them.

With the coyote only a few feet away, Juliana made a run for the house and was briefly pursued by the animal. Meanwhile, Sarah scrambled up a tree, where she watched the coyote look over the yard before loping off into the brush.

“The girls are fine now, but they were shaken up,” said Janet Sahni, Juliana’s mother. “Nothing bad happened.”

Westlake, along with Mountain Park and Greentree, is one of the areas in Lake Oswego where coyotes are most frequently spotted, according to the Lake Oswego Police Department. Since the incident with the girls was first publicized, the department has been receiving more calls.

“The community seems to be more aware and sensitive to coyotes than in the past,” said Capt. Don Forman of the LOPD. “The city has been getting, on average, two or three reports of coyote sightings a month. Since yesterday the city has received five or six reports.”

Forman said the police have not yet had to deal with a dangerous coyote situation, and since coyotes make only very brief appearances they are usually gone before a police officer arrives. However, the incident with the two girls may raise people’s concerns over coyotes.

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