Humane Voters Oregon mourns the sudden and unexpected passing of our Board President, Bob Sallinger.
As we grieve alongside Bob‘s family and many friends, we also honor his incredible legacy to conservation and animal welfare in Oregon. As the conservation director for Portland Audubon (now Bird Alliance of Oregon), Bob spent 30 years advocating tirelessly for the natural world and the animals that live here. More recently, he was continuing his extraordinary advocacy as the executive director of both Willamette Riverkeeper and Bird Conservation Oregon, an organization he recently founded.
Among Bob's many accomplishments were teaching Portlanders how to coexist with coyotes, reducing the time animals could be left suffering in traps, protecting the ban on hunting cougars with dogs, ending coyote-killing contests, and persuading the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to pursue a program emphasizing humane responses to human-wildlife conflict.
Bob's compassion for living beings also extended to companion animals, including the dogs, cats, goats and chickens that shared his home. Bridging conservation and animal welfare is not always a straightforward endeavor, but Bob’s devotion to both led to his collaborative leadership on innovative projects such as Cats Safe at Home. Bob joined the board of Humane Voters Oregon in 2016, in full support of our efforts to make animal welfare a bigger issue in Oregon's political process and elections. He became our board president in 2019.
Bob will be deeply missed by our supporters and fellow board members. His life continues to inspire us and countless others to carry on as advocates for the creatures and natural places he loved so well.
Bob is survived by his wife, Elisabeth, three children, and their animal companions. Our hearts are with them as they navigate through this incredibly difficult time.