A2 THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, MAY 1, 2022
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Beaverton woman sues neighbor who
allegedly left ‘hate-filled’ notes on car
Neighbor caught on
hidden camera leaving
message, lawsuit says
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BY ZANE SPARLING
The Oregonian
A Beaverton woman who says she
was tormented for more than two
years by anonymous notes has sued a
neighbor allegedly caught on camera
leaving a hateful screed at her condo.
The woman seeks $245,000 from
her 57-year-old neighbor, and says
in the lawsuit that the hand-scrawled
notes contained “deranged, hate-filled,
homophobic and racist” language.
Hunter did not respond to multiple at-
tempts to reach her.
The paper messages were bagged
and taped to the woman’s car or her
partner’s car while parked overnight at
their condominium complex, begin-
ning in December 2019, she said.
“I always have to look over my
shoulder at who is watching us,” said
the woman, who isn’t identified in
court papers and requested anonymity
due to fears of retaliation. “Nobody has
any right to cause such emotional dis-
tress for a long time.”
The woman, 62, said she believes she
was targeted because she is Japanese
and her partner is Latino.
The messages appeared sporadi-
cally in 2020 and 2021, the woman said
in a phone interview, before turning
up with alarming frequency this year,
when 14 of the 21 notes appeared. Five
of the messages were left this month, as
recently as April 15, she said.
The Oregonian reviewed copies of
the notes, as well as a spreadsheet cre-
ated by the woman tracking the al-
leged harassment. The notes wrongly
refer to the woman’s partner as her son
and frequently refer to him using ho-
mophobic slurs. Another message calls
the woman an unintelligent member
of her race.
“Stop coming back here! I know
where your mother lives so I will come
shove dog (feces) down both your
throats,” one letter says, adding an ex-
pletive. “You will not stop me. You
have not even figured out where I am.”
The woman said she hired a private
detective, who installed a hidden cam-
era inside her partner’s car, capturing
footage of a person leaving a note.
The detective then identified the
note-leaver as the neighbor, accord-
ing to attorney Michael Fuller, who
filed the suit April 22 in Multnomah
County Circuit Court on the woman’s
behalf.
“There’s a level of anti-Asian hate
that I see in our community, that I’ve
never experienced before,” Fuller said.
“I think we need to send a message
that this is not acceptable.”
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RETURN OF THE EELS
BY ERIC BARKER
The Lewiston Tribune (Idaho)
ASOTIN, Wash. — Chuck
Axtell rang a bell and Shan-
non Wheeler rapped a drum
as part of an extended blessing
and welcoming ceremony for
about a dozen Pacific lamprey
just upstream from the mouth
of Asotin Creek.
One by one, members of
the Nez Perce Tribe and their
guests delicately released the
squirming fish into the cold
rushing water. Moments ear-
lier, Axtell sang the tribe’s
“Circle of Life’’ song in the Nez
Perce language.
“That song is blessing them,
that they will complete the cir-
cle,” he said.
The fish, with some help
from humans, are close to
doing just that and helping
ensure the species retains its
fragile grip in the vast Snake
River ecosystem.
The eel-like fish with a
toothy disc mouth, known as
heésu, were once common.
Nez Perce people came to the
creek to catch lamprey, which
were an important source of
food and medicine.
The creek and the town of
Asotin would eventually take
their name from a mispro-
nunciation of Hesuutin, a Nez
Perce word that means “place
of the eels.”
But the scaleless fish are
now rare here and everywhere
in the Snake River basin.
Dams on the Columbia and
Snake rivers make it nearly
impossible for adult lamprey
to reach spawning grounds.
“Lamprey are an anadro-
mous fish. They migrate to the
ocean and return,” said Sam-
uel N. Penney, chairman of
the Nez Perce Tribal Executive
Committee. “At each of the
dams, at least 50% are lost.”
In 2007, the tribe began col-
lecting lamprey at dams on the
Columbia River and trucking
them to Snake River tribu-
taries for release. In all, about
6,000 of the fish have been
moved upriver and released
in places like Asotin Creek,
Austin Johnson
Nez Perce tribal elder and spiritual leader Charles Axtell speaks words
of admiration and encouragment to a Pacific lamprey fish before re-
leasing it into Asotin Creek in Asotin Thursday. Lamprey, an eel-like
fish, hold a strong historic and medicinal reverence to the Nez Perce
and other Native American tribes in the region, but their numbers
have declined significantly over recent decades.
the south fork of the Salmon
River, the south fork of the
Clearwater River and tributar-
ies to the Grande Ronde River.
“We just let them hitch a
ride with us. We get them up
past the barriers and then we
release them to do their thing,”
said Todd Sween, a lamprey
biologist with the tribe’s De-
partment of Fisheries Re-
sources Management.
Jon Hess, a scientist with the
Columbia River Inter-Tribal
Fish Commission, of which
the Nez Perce Tribe is a mem-
ber, has used genetic testing
to document that the translo-
cated lamprey have success-
fully spawned and their off-
spring have migrated to the
ocean.
“Everywhere we have put
them, everywhere we have
released adults, we have doc-
umented successful reproduc-
tion,’’ Sween said.
That is important because
unlike salmon and steelhead,
lamprey do not have fidel-
ity to the particular streams
where they were hatched. In-
stead, mature adults key in
on pheromones released by
larval lamprey to find suitable
spawning habitat. So while a
lamprey from the Snake River
basin could return to the river
to spawn, it might also return
to another Columbia River
tributary or any river on the
West Coast.
Once a river becomes de-
void of juvenile lamprey, lit-
tle remains to attract adults
to spawning areas, no matter
how pristine they may be.
“That is the primary ob-
jective of our work — getting
the adults up here, getting
the young established so they
can give off that pheromone
plume,” Sween said.
The fish released Thursday,
which also included about 100
more that were placed far-
ther upstream, are part of that
stopgap program.
“We understand this is a
Band-Aid approach and there
is a long term fix that needs to
be done,” Penney said.
The Army Corps of Engi-
neers has experimented with
ways to improve lamprey pas-
sage at dams but the work has
just begun and yet to prove
successful. Last year, only 31
lamprey were counted passing
Lower Granite Dam. The 10-
year average is 102.
The tribe supports breach-
ing the four lower Snake River
dams as a means to saving
lamprey and threatened and
endangered stocks of salmon
and steelhead. The Snake
River and its nearly pristine
tributaries are viewed by sci-
entists as an important strong-
hold for salmon and steel-
head that could be unleashed
through breaching.
Sween said that same
high-quality habitat could also
be key to saving lamprey. As
juveniles, lamprey spend years
filter feeding in the sand and
silt of river beds. They are es-
pecially vulnerable to pollu-
tion and need clean water to
survive.
“Here in Nez Perce coun-
try,” he said, “we are blessed
with just relatively pristine wa-
tersheds.”
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LOCAL BRIEFING
Bend-La Pine Schools
to hold event
honoring enlisted
high school graduates
Bend-La Pine Schools
is planning an event to
recognize students who
have enlisted to serve in
the armed forces following
graduation.
The district said in a
press release that more
than a dozen students
from multiple schools will
attend the event, which
will occur at Mountain
View High School from
3:45 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
May 9.
Representatives from
different branches of the
armed forces will attend
the event, along with stu-
dents in the Mountain
View National ROTC pro-
gram, who will serve cake
and refreshments, the
press release said.
“We are proud to cele-
brate alongside these stu-
dents, who are making
a tremendous commit-
ment to serve our country
through enlisting in the
Armed Forces,” Superin-
tendent Steven Cook said
in the press release.
— Bulletin staff report