LAKE OSWEGO, Or - Sarah May-Varas and Juliana Sahni were playing in the backyard of Sahni's home when they heard a faint noise behind them.
"Its front paws were about at the edge of the brown circle of the other tree," said Sahni.
Standing only a few yards away from them was a coyote.
"It had big, pointy ears and a tail, a real fluffy tail," said May-Varas. "Its eyes were really fierce," added Sahni, who made a mad dash for her house. May-Varas climbed a nearby tree and stared down at the coyote in both fear and shock.
"The coyote came in the area I was in and it started sniffing the base of the tree," she said. With the coyote only a few feet below her May-Varas screamed.
"We were thinking, oh no, the coyote got her," said Sahni, who along with her mom, thought the worst. But then the pair watched as the coyote took off in the same direction it came from.
"It's scary," said Janet Sahni. the girls' mother. "She was shaken up and luckily nobody got hurt, but I don't want to wait for that next time to happen," she added.
"This is a common call to our office," said David Williams, who works for USDA Wildlife Services. He said there are an abundance of coyotes in the Portland metropolitan area. "They're very adaptable, they can make a living in and around us here in Portland, as well as out in eastern Oregon," said Williams.
But other experts add that incidents between humans and coyotes are rare.
But not rare enough for Sahni and May-Varas. "I thought Juliana was going to turn into a t-bone," said May-Varas.
