Coyote Hunting Colorado, Laws, Regulations, Season, & License Info

Coyote classification & license in Colorado

What is the classification of coyotes in Colorado?

Coyotes are furbearers, named in the definition alongside sixteen other species:

“Furbearers” means those species with fur having commercial value and which provide opportunities for sport harvest including mink, pine marten, badger, red fox, gray fox, swift fox, striped skunk, western spotted skunk, beaver, muskrat, long-tailed weasel, short-tailed weasel, coyote, bobcat, opossum, ring-tailed cat and raccoon.¹

Colorado runs the classification question backwards from most western states. Elsewhere on this site the useful discovery is that coyotes sit outside the category a restriction names — Utah excludes coyote from “furbearer” by name, Nevada and Oregon call them unprotected mammals, and the rules written for game animals fall away. In Colorado the coyote is squarely inside the regulated category, and being inside it cuts both ways.

Being a furbearer is what gives you night hunting and electronic calls, both of which Colorado grants to furbearers and to almost nothing else. It is also what imposes the new two-a-day bag limit, the killing-contest ban, and a closed list of legal methods: “Any method of take not listed herein shall be prohibited.”²

Work from the furbearer rules and the Colorado page falls out. Work from “coyotes are varmints” and almost all of it is wrong.

Are coyotes protected in Colorado?

Not protected in the sense of a closed season — the season runs all year.³ But “unprotected” is the wrong word for Colorado. You need a license, you need to register with a federal-style harvest survey before your first trip, there is a daily limit from September, and competitive events are banned. Colorado regulates coyotes more tightly than any other western state on this site.

Is a hunting license required to hunt coyotes in Colorado?

Yes. A small game license is the normal route:

A small game license authorizes the take of coyotes and those species defined in #300(D) as small game, except wild turkey.⁴

A furbearer license also works, and authorizes every furbearer.⁵ The $10 furbearer harvest permit — the add-on a small game license needs before it reaches the other sixteen furbearers — is not required for coyotes. Coyote is the one furbearer a plain small game license already covers.

Everyone must also have a HIP number, and it is free. The rule is a registration, not a purchase:

Each hunter must register their intent to hunt migratory birds, small game or coyotes by completing a Harvest Information Program (HIP) survey online (www.cpwshop.com) or by calling (1-855-521-3050) prior to their first hunting trip of the season.⁶

“Season” here means 1 March to 31 March of the following year, so it is once a year, not once a trip.⁶ Doing it after you hunt does not work — the rule says prior to.

The big game license route is gone, and this is the change most likely to catch a returning hunter. For years an unfilled deer, elk or pronghorn license let you take a coyote during that season with the same method of take, without buying anything extra. CPW removed it: “Big-game hunters with an unfilled big-game license could previously take coyotes during the season on their license with the same method of take as their big-game license. The provision has since [been removed]”.⁷ The reason CPW gives is harvest data — coyote estimates come from HIP, and hunters who never bought a small game license were invisible to it. The current rule no longer contains the provision at all.⁴

License fees move every year, so treat these 2025 figures as a guide and check CPWShop before you buy: small game $36.68 resident / $101.54 non-resident, one-day small game $16.72 / $20.46, youth small game and furbearer $1.50, furbearer license $36.68 / $101.54, furbearer harvest permit $10.⁸ Add the $12.47 Habitat Stamp if you are 18 to 64.⁸

The prices above are resident prices. A non-resident pays more, and may need a different license — see what a non-resident needs.

Is hunter education required in Colorado?

Yes, if you were born on or after 1 January 1949. The requirement attaches to buying the license, not to the species:

any person born on or after January 1, 1949, must have a valid hunter education certificate prior to hunting, trapping, or purchasing any hunting license⁹

Colorado recognizes certificates from other states and countries.⁹ It has become worth more than it used to be, for a reason that has nothing to do with wildlife — a CPW-certified hunter education card cuts the firearms safety course behind the new semi-automatic purchase permit from twelve hours to four. See magazines and the AR-15 question.

Can a non-resident hunt coyotes in Colorado?

Yes, on the same licenses at non-resident prices.⁸ Non-residents face no extra restriction on coyotes, no draw and no quota.

Two things carry over from the resident answer and are easy to miss if you landed on this question straight from a search.

A HIP number is required of everyone, including you. It is free and it is a registration rather than a purchase — “Each hunter must register their intent to hunt migratory birds, small game or coyotes by completing a Harvest Information Program (HIP) survey online … prior to their first hunting trip of the season.”⁶ A visitor who buys a license online and stops there has not finished.

You do not need the $10 furbearer harvest permit for coyotes. That add-on is what a small game license needs before it reaches the other sixteen furbearers, and coyote is the one furbearer a plain small game license already covers.⁴ Do not let it get added to a coyote trip.

See also is a hunting license required — the license rules there, and the exemptions and add-ons that go with them, apply to you too.

Season, hours & the two-coyote limit in Colorado

What is the season for coyote hunting in Colorado?

Year-round. “Statewide: January 1 - December 31 annually.”³

What is the bag limit for coyotes in Colorado?

Two per day, in force since 1 September 2026. Possession is still unlimited.¹⁰

This is new, and it is the single most important thing on this page. The rule reads:

Daily Bag Limit - two (2) coyote¹⁰

It was adopted by the Parks and Wildlife Commission on 16 July 2026 and took effect on 1 September 2026.¹¹ CPW’s own furbearer page now states it plainly — “The bag limit for 17 furbearer species is now 2” — and coyote is one of the seventeen.¹² Re-checked and confirmed in force on 3 September 2026.

What the limit does and does not do. It is a daily limit on each species, so two coyotes a day, every day, all year, with no cap on how many you may possess in total.¹⁰ It applies to all seventeen furbearer species, not just coyotes.

How it came about is worth knowing, because it tells you how stable it is. CPW’s own staff proposed a daily bag of fifteen in March 2026 and told the Commission there was no biological case for any limit at all — the Division’s written rationale lists the purposes as maintaining “social acceptance” of hunting and trapping and preventing localized overharvest, and concedes it is acting “in the absence of any data-based biological need for daily bag limits.”¹³ The Commission rejected the staff numbers and adopted two, on a 6–5 vote, from a motion by a commissioner appointed the month before.¹⁴ A rule adopted one vote either way, against staff advice, is a rule worth re-checking before each season.

What are the legal hunting hours for coyotes in Colorado?

Half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset — and then coyotes are one of eight species that may also be hunted at night:

Furbearers - from one-half (1/2) hour before sunrise to one-half (1/2) hour after sunset. Additionally; beaver, bobcat, coyote, gray fox, raccoon, red fox, striped skunk, and swift fox may be hunted at night in accordance with Regulation #‘s 303(E)(7) and (E)(8).¹⁵

Note the shape of that sentence, because it decides the night vision question further down. Night is not a separate permission sitting outside legal hours — it is written into the hours rule itself, conditioned on the two artificial-light provisions. See night hunting.

Small game hunters get sunrise to sunset with no half hour on the back end.¹⁵ Coyotes are the more generous case.

Can you hunt coyotes during deer or big game season in Colorado?

Yes, with three things to plan around.

The caliber rule flips west of I-25. During the regular rifle deer and elk seasons, in the western half of the state, your coyote rifle is capped unless you are also carrying a big game tag:

It shall be unlawful to hunt any game birds, small game mammals or furbearers, with a centerfire rifle larger than .23 caliber during the regular deer and elk seasons west of Interstate 25, unless the hunter holds an unfilled deer or elk license for the season he is hunting.¹⁶

A .223 or .22-250 is inside it. A .243 is not. Note what the exception now costs you: holding an unfilled deer or elk license lifts the caliber cap, but since the license change above it no longer authorizes the coyote — you need the small game license and the big game tag to shoot a coyote with a .243 west of I-25 in October.

Night permits go dark over the rifle seasons. No public-land light permit is valid during any deer, elk or pronghorn rifle season, nor in the 24 hours before opening weekend, nor on the opening weekend of grouse, pheasant, quail, turkey or waterfowl seasons where those are running.¹⁷

Orange is not required of you, and you should wear it anyway. CPW is explicit that “Small-game and migratory bird hunters are not required to wear solid, fluorescent orange or pink clothes. However, CPW encourages you to wear fluorescent orange or pink clothes for safety.”¹⁸ In the second week of October on public land in Colorado, that is not a close call.

Night hunting coyotes in Colorado

Can you hunt coyotes at night in Colorado?

Yes — coyote is one of the eight species Colorado names for night hunting — but the permission arrives through the artificial-light rules, and it lands very differently on private and public ground.¹⁵

Can you use artificial lights for coyote hunting in Colorado?

On private land: yes, with written permission.

Artificial light (private land) may be used at night to take beaver, bobcat, coyote, gray fox, raccoon, red fox, striped skunk and swift fox on private land with written permission of the landowner, designated agent, lessee, or authorized employee.¹⁹

Written. Not a phone call, not a handshake — the word is in the rule, and it is the one condition a Colorado night hunter most often fails to meet. Get it on paper, dated, and carry it.

On public land: permit only, from your local district or area wildlife manager.

Artificial light (public land) may be used at night to take beaver, bobcat, coyote, gray fox, raccoon, red fox, striped skunk and swift fox on public lands by permit only²⁰

The permit carries seven conditions, and they are strict enough that public-land night hunting in Colorado is best thought of as a favor rather than a right:¹⁷

• each permit is valid only for the time, species and location written on it;
• no permit is valid during any deer, elk or pronghorn rifle season, in the 24 hours before opening weekend, or on the opening weekend of grouse, pheasant, quail, turkey or waterfowl seasons where they are running;
• a light permanently attached to, or projected from within, a vehicle is prohibited;
• no taking within 500 yards of a dwelling, building or other structure, or anywhere public concentration would put people at risk;
• the permit must be carried and produced on demand;
• area and district wildlife managers may refuse a permit where night hunting could push large numbers of big game around;
• the whole permit requirement falls away for damage control — no permit is needed for a landowner, their family, lessee, agent, employee or written designee acting to protect that person’s property.

Behind all of it sits the statute, which makes lights unlawful as a baseline and then hands the exceptions to the Commission and to landowners:

Unless otherwise provided by commission rule and except as provided in section 33-6-107(9) for persons owning or leasing land, members of their family, or their agents, it is unlawful for any person to utilize any artificial light as an aid in hunting or taking any wildlife.²¹

The same statute adds a prima facie rule that is easy to trip over even when you are doing nothing wrong: carrying a firearm with a round in the chamber or magazine, or an uncased strung bow, while projecting a light into country where wildlife may be found is itself evidence of a violation.²¹ If you are scanning without a valid permission, unload and case up first.

Can you use night vision in Colorado?

Legal inside legal hunting hours — and for coyotes, legal hunting hours include the night when you are hunting them lawfully at night. This one takes a paragraph, because the statute and the rule have to be read together and most summaries stop at the first one.

The statute:

Unless otherwise provided by commission rule and except as provided in section 33-6-107(9) for persons owning or leasing land, members of their family, or their agents, it is unlawful for a person to utilize electronic night vision equipment, electronically enhanced light-gathering optics, or thermal imaging devices as an aid in hunting or taking wildlife outside legal hunting hours according to commission rules.²¹

Read alone, that looks like a night ban. It is not — it is a ban outside legal hunting hours, and it defers to the Commission on what those hours are. The Commission’s answer for coyotes is that they “may be hunted at night in accordance with Regulation #‘s 303(E)(7) and (E)(8).”¹⁵ Night, hunted under those provisions, is inside legal hunting hours for a coyote. The prohibition does not reach it.

So in practice:

• Private land, written permission in hand — night is legal hours for coyote, and night vision is lawful.
• Public land with a light permit — same, within the time, species and place the permit names.¹⁷
• Landowner, lessee, family, agent or employee doing damage control on their own ground — expressly excepted from the statute altogether.²¹
• Anywhere else after dark — you are outside legal hunting hours, and using night vision there is a $2,000 fine and twenty license suspension points, ten times the penalty for the light offence.²¹

The gap worth naming: the hours rule extends night hunting “in accordance with” the two light provisions, and both of those are written about artificial light. Whether a hunter who never switches a light on still needs the written permission or the permit has not been squarely answered by CPW in print. Read it as needed — the permission and the permit are what put you inside legal hours, and the penalty for guessing wrong is the $2,000 one. If you plan to run thermal on public ground, ring your area wildlife manager and get the position in writing along with the permit.

Can you use thermal in Colorado?

Same answer, same statute. Thermal imaging devices are named in the same sentence as night vision and enhanced light-gathering optics, and carry the same test: unlawful outside legal hunting hours, lawful inside them.²¹

Colorado is therefore one of the better thermal states in the West on paper and one of the more conditional ones in practice. There is no equivalent of Arizona’s flat ban, and no equivalent of the possession trap Utah and Idaho set for big game seasons. What Colorado asks instead is that you have already earned the night — written permission, or a permit — before the optic matters.

Nothing in the furbearer chapter restricts optics of any kind.² The restriction is entirely in the statute, and the statute is entirely about hours.

Are there specific weapons restrictions for hunting coyotes at night in Colorado?

No separate night list — the legal methods are the same after dark as before it.²² Three things do change:

The 500-yard setback from any dwelling, building or other structure applies to public-land permit hunting.¹⁷ Vehicle-mounted or vehicle-projected lights are prohibited outright.¹⁷ And drones are unlawful as a scouting aid at any hour — “It shall be unlawful to use a drone to look for, scout, or detect wildlife as an aid in the hunting or taking of wildlife” — which matters more at night than by day, because a thermal drone is exactly the tool people reach for.²³

Firearms, ammunition & magazines in Colorado

Are suppressors allowed for coyote hunting in Colorado?

Yes, for any game, once the suppressor is federally registered. Colorado places no wildlife-law restriction on hunting with a suppressor — the legal methods for furbearers are “any rifle or handgun” and “any shotgun,” with no exclusion for a suppressed one.²²

The ownership side is state law, and it is a felony without the paperwork. Colorado lists a firearm silencer as a “dangerous weapon,” and knowingly possessing one is a class 5 felony. The defense is “a valid permit and license for possession of such weapon.”²⁴ The statute does not say what counts, and no court has settled it; owners rely on the approved federal registration, so keep it with you.

So the order is the ATF Form 4 or Form 1, the approval, then the field. Since January 1, 2026 the federal tax on a suppressor is $0, but the approval and the wait are unchanged.²⁵ No additional state hunting permit.

What firearms are allowed or restricted for coyote hunting in Colorado?

The furbearer list is short and it is a closed list — anything not on it is prohibited:²

• any rifle or handgun;
• any shotgun;
• handheld bows and crossbows;
• any air gun, except that for coyote or bobcat the air gun must be a pre-charged pneumatic air gun .25 caliber or larger;²⁶
• live traps, limited to cage or box traps;
• electronic call devices;
• artificial light, under the two night provisions above.²²

Two statewide bans apply on top. Smart rifles are prohibited — every firearm “shall be fired only by humanly controlled, manually-operated mechanical triggers,” and a smart rifle means anything with a target tracking system, an electronically controlled or computer-linked trigger, or a ballistics computer.²⁷ And drones may not be used to scout.²³

Then the caliber cap: no centerfire rifle larger than .23 for furbearers during the regular rifle deer and elk seasons west of I-25, unless you hold an unfilled deer or elk license.¹⁶ For most of the year, in most of the state, this does not bind — but it is the one that catches October hunters in the mountains. See the best coyote gun.

Are there any ammunition restrictions in Colorado?

None specific to ammunition. Colorado’s only load-adjacent rule is the .23 caliber cap above, which is about the cartridge the rifle is chambered for rather than the bullet in it.¹⁶ No lead restriction applies to coyotes on state ground; federal refuges and some municipal open space set their own.

Can you hunt coyotes in Colorado using a .22 LR or other rimfire cartridge?

Yes. “Any rifle or handgun” covers rimfire, and the .23 caliber cap is a maximum, not a minimum.²² A .22 LR is legal and, on a coyote, is a marginal choice at anything past a very short distance — the pelt argument does not survive a wounded animal.

Is there a magazine capacity limit for hunting coyotes in Colorado?

Yes — fifteen rounds, and this is criminal law rather than wildlife law. The hunting regulations say nothing about magazines, which is true and useless; the answer is in the criminal code.

A “large-capacity magazine” is any magazine “capable of accepting, or that is designed to be readily converted to accept, more than fifteen rounds of ammunition.”²⁸ Possessing, selling or transferring one is a class 2 misdemeanour.²⁹ There is a grandfather clause and it is narrow: you must have owned the magazine on 1 July 2013 and maintained continuous possession since — though if you assert it, “the prosecution has the burden of proof to refute the assertion.”²⁹ Tubular .22 rimfire magazines and lever-action tube magazines are excluded from the definition entirely.²⁸

So an AR-15 is lawful to hunt coyotes with in Colorado. The 30-round magazine that came with it is not.

Buying one changed on 1 August 2026. Under SB25-003, purchasing or transferring a “specified semiautomatic firearm” — broadly, a semi-automatic rifle or shotgun that takes a detachable magazine, or a gas-operated semi-automatic handgun with a detachable magazine — now requires an eligibility card issued by your county sheriff, valid five years, plus a firearms safety course passed at 90%.³⁰ CPW administers the course side of it, and this is where hunter education earns its keep: with a CPW-certified hunter education card you take the four-hour Basic course; without one you take the twelve-hour Extended course, which must run across at least two days.³⁰ CPW is blunt that hunter education alone is not enough — “Completion of a hunter education course certified by CPW will not qualify you for purchasing a SSF.”³⁰ Budget $52 to CPW plus a county sheriff fee.³⁰

None of this touches a rifle you already own. It is a purchase-and-transfer requirement, and it applies from 1 August 2026 forward.³⁰

Calls, decoys, bait & dogs in Colorado

Are electronic calls allowed for coyote hunting in Colorado?

Yes — and this is the clearest payoff of the furbearer classification. Colorado’s rule is a permission scoped to furbearers and to nothing else:

Except as otherwise provided in these regulations, electronic calls may only be used as an aid in taking furbearers.³¹

Read it the other way and you can see how much work “furbearer” is doing: a caller that is lawful on a coyote is unlawful on a cottontail sitting under the same bush. Mechanical calls, by contrast, “may be used to take all species of wildlife during established seasons.”³²

Are decoys allowed for coyote hunting in Colorado?

Yes, without qualification — “Decoys may be used.”³³ Motion decoys included.

Is baiting allowed for coyote hunting in Colorado?

Yes for furbearers, with a materials rule that is really a litter rule:

Furbearers may be taken with the aid of baiting. Where permitted, baits shall consist solely of material of animal or plant origin and shall not contain any materials of metal, glass, porcelain, plastic, cardboard or paper. Wildlife used as bait shall be the carcass, or parts thereof, of legally taken furbearers, carp, shad, white and longnose suckers, and nonedible portions of legally obtained game mammals, birds and game fish.³⁴

So a carcass is fine; a carcass in a feed sack is not. Note which fish are named — carp, shad and the two suckers — and that game fish may only contribute their inedible parts.

There is a separate rule about luring coyotes, and it is scoped to town. No person may put out food that they know or should know is “a lure, attraction, or enticement for coyotes or fox in an area where the discharge of firearms is precluded by law,” and it expressly “shall not apply to any person using any bait or other attractants for the purpose of luring coyotes and fox for take as otherwise authorized by law.”³⁵ It is a habituation rule aimed at neighbourhoods, not a restriction on baiting a legal stand.

Can you use dogs to hunt coyotes in Colorado?

Yes, in a limited role:

Dogs may be used to hunt or take mountain lion, small game, waterfowl, and furbearers, only as an aid to pursue, bring to bay, retrieve, flush or point, but not otherwise.³⁶

“But not otherwise” is doing real work — the dog may find, push and hold, and that is the end of its permitted job.

Private property, vehicles & public land access in Colorado

Is it legal to shoot coyotes on private property (e.g. in your backyard) in Colorado?

On rural private land, yes — with permission, which is a statutory requirement and not a courtesy:

It is unlawful for any person to enter upon privately owned land or lands under the control of the state board of land commissioners to hunt or take any wildlife by hunting, trapping, or fishing without first obtaining permission from the owner or person in possession of such land.³⁷

For night work that permission must be written.¹⁹

In a town, no. Municipal discharge ordinances govern, and the Front Range cities where coyote complaints are loudest are precisely the places where you cannot legally shoot one. The luring rule above draws the same line — it bites “in an area where the discharge of firearms is precluded by law.”³⁵

If coyotes are damaging your own property, a different rule applies. A landowner or lessee, their family, or their employees may take coyotes on land they own or lease without a license — “but only when such wildlife is causing damage to crops, real or personal property, or livestock.”³⁸ That same subsection is the exception written into the artificial-light and night-vision statute, so damage control is exempt from the light and optics restrictions too.²¹ Damage control is a different rule set from recreation; do not use it as a shortcut into one.

Can you hunt coyotes from a motorized vehicle in Colorado?

No.

Unless otherwise permitted by commission rule, it is unlawful for a person to hunt, take, or harass wildlife from or with a motor vehicle.³⁹

Discharging a firearm or releasing an arrow from a vehicle with intent to take wildlife is a separate offence in the next paragraph.³⁹ Shooting “from, upon, or across any public road” is a third one.⁴⁰ And at night, a light attached to or projected from inside a vehicle is prohibited on its own terms.¹⁷

CPW can issue manner-of-take accommodations to hunters with disabilities, which is the route to shooting from a stationary vehicle lawfully.²²

Can you hunt coyotes on public land in Colorado?

Yes, and there is a great deal of it — roughly a third of Colorado is federal, mostly BLM and National Forest, and coyotes are on all of it.

Two access rules catch people. State Wildlife Areas and State Trust Lands are not open ground: “Everyone age 16 years or older must have a valid hunting or fishing license to be on any part of a state trust land or state wildlife area or have a valid Colorado State Wildlife Area Pass to be on any part of a state wildlife area.”⁴¹ State trust lands are only open where CPW leases them, and many SWAs carry their own discharge and season closures.

And night hunting on public land is permit-only, from the local district or area wildlife manager, with the seven conditions in night hunting attached.²⁰

Corner crossing is lawful in Colorado. The Tenth Circuit held in Iron Bar Holdings, LLC v. Cape on 18 March 2025 that stepping between two parcels of public land at a shared corner, without touching the private ground, is protected by the Unlawful Inclosures Act, and the Supreme Court declined the appeal on 20 October 2025.⁴² Colorado is inside the Tenth Circuit, so the ruling applies here as it does in Wyoming — and it opens a lot of checkerboarded BLM on the eastern plains. It protects crossing on foot without contact, not driving across.

Is it legal to trap or snare coyotes in Colorado?

Cage and box traps only. Everything else was banned by the state constitution. Amendment 14, passed in 1996, prohibits taking wildlife with any leghold trap, any instant-kill body-gripping trap, or by poison or snare.⁴³ The wildlife regulations follow it — the only trapping device on the furbearer methods list is “Live traps, limited to cage or box traps.”²²

Traps must be checked in person at least once every day, and daily inspection tightens to every 24 hours inside the Canada lynx recovery area.¹⁵ Anything caught alive must be released on site or dispatched there; a live-trapped furbearer “cannot be moved from the capture site.”⁴⁴

The constitution’s narrow exceptions run to human health and safety, rodent and bird control, research, falconry, relocation and medical treatment, and — the one that matters to ranchers — up to 30 days on private land to stop ongoing damage to livestock or crops, after non-lethal methods have been tried and the damage shown to CPW.⁴³

Is it legal to poison coyotes in Colorado?

No. Poison is named in the constitutional prohibition alongside leghold traps and snares.⁴³ There is no recreational route to it and no permit that reopens it for a private individual. Predator toxicants are restricted-use pesticides confined to authorized agency programs.

Are there protected areas or additional local restrictions in Colorado?

Yes, and they stack. The 500-yard setback around dwellings and structures for public-land night permits.¹⁷ Municipal and county discharge ordinances, which are the binding rule anywhere near a town. State Wildlife Area and State Trust Land rules, many of which close specific units to hunting, discharge or night use.⁴¹ The Canada lynx recovery area, where bait and lure restrictions apply to anything meant to attract cats and where bobcat night permits are withheld.¹⁵ And National Park Service land, where hunting is closed outright.

Can you use two-way radios while coyote hunting in Colorado?

Yes. Neither CPW’s Colorado Small Game & Waterfowl Brochure nor Chapter W-0, the general provisions that apply to all hunting, restricts two-way radios, and Title 33 adds nothing.

After the shot: pelts, bounties & contests in Colorado

Are there regulations for possessing or transporting dead coyotes or pelts out of Colorado?

Coyotes are the easy furbearer here. No seal, no inspection, no check-in. Colorado requires presentation and sealing for bobcat, and from October 2026 for beaver as well — neither requirement extends to coyote.⁴⁵

Nothing in the coyote rules restricts transport out of state. Your obligation is at the far end: the state you are driving into may have its own import rules, and if you are traveling with a bobcat as well, that one needs its seal before it crosses the line.⁴⁶

Can you sell coyote pelts in Colorado, and do you need a fur handler’s license?

You can sell them, and Colorado has no separate fur handler’s license:

Except as prohibited by Federal law or regulations of the Wildlife Commission, any person may sell, barter or trade nonedible portions of wildlife (fur, feathers, hides, hair, teeth, claws, hooves, horns, antlers, skulls and bones) which were legally taken or acquired.⁴⁷

One wrinkle for landowners: pelts from animals taken under the damage-control exception may only be sold by someone who holds “an appropriate small game license.”³⁸ Take a coyote off your own place without a license and you may not then sell the hide without buying one.

A commercial fur sales ban was live in Colorado this year and is dead for now. The Commission voted 6–5 on 17 July 2026 to terminate the rulemaking, on the same day it adopted the two-a-day bag limit.¹⁴

Is there a coyote bounty program in Colorado?

No. There is no state bounty. CPW pays nothing for a coyote, and the 2020 ban on competitive events makes a state-sponsored payment program an unlikely direction for Colorado to take.

Two southeastern counties, Baca and Prowers, ran short county-funded bounties at $7.50 an animal — in 1999, not recently.⁴⁸ County programs are not published anywhere centrally and none is known to be running now; if you hear of one, confirm it with the county commissioners rather than with a forum post.

Are coyote contests legal in Colorado, or can I hunt in Colorado for an out-of-state contest?

No to both. Colorado bans them outright, and coyotes are covered because they are furbearers:

Contests involving black-tailed, white-tailed and Gunnison’s prairie dogs, Wyoming (Richardson’s) ground squirrel, or Furbearers are prohibited.⁴⁹

The rule defines a contest as “any competitive event where money or other valuable prizes are awarded for the taking of such small game and furbearers,” and it carves out only tokens of recognition with no significant monetary value, plus licensed wildlife parks and field trials.⁴⁹

The Commission adopted the ban on 30 April 2020, effective that June, making Colorado the sixth state in the country to prohibit these events; it ended long-running competitions in Pueblo, Keenesburg and the San Luis Valley.⁵⁰ Because the prohibition attaches to the taking rather than to where the prize is handed over, taking coyotes in Colorado as an entry in a contest run from another state is not a way around it.

Colorado now sits with California, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Nevada — every western state on this site except Utah, Wyoming and Idaho has now closed contests.

Coyotes in Colorado

Are there coyotes in Colorado? How many, and where?

Yes, in every county and at nearly every elevation — eastern plains shortgrass, the Front Range suburbs, mountain parks, the western slope canyons and above timberline in summer. Colorado publishes no population estimate; CPW’s furbearer harvest survey is a voluntary sample rather than a census, which is part of why staff told the Commission there was no biological basis for a bag limit.¹³ Independent density work puts Colorado somewhere in the high tens of thousands, and CPW’s reported harvest has shown no downward trend.

Denver and Boulder are among the most studied urban coyote landscapes in the country, and the animals there are protected by geography rather than by law — you cannot legally discharge a firearm at them.

Are Colorado coyotes dangerous to people or pets?

To people, very rarely, and Front Range habituation is the reason CPW wrote a rule requiring residents to secure trash, grills, pet food and bird feeders once notified that coyotes are in the area.³⁵ To unattended small dogs and cats, and to sheep and calves, they are a routine and serious threat — livestock depredation is what the damage-control exception exists for.³⁸

When is coyote mating season in Colorado, and when do pups arrive?

Breeding runs through February, with pups on the ground from April. Late winter is the best calling of the year in Colorado for the same reason it is everywhere — paired animals are territorial and respond hard — and in Colorado it has a second advantage: it falls clear of the autumn rifle seasons when the night permits go dark and the caliber cap bites west of I-25.

When are coyotes most active in Colorado?

First and last light year-round, with a strong night shift anywhere they are pressured by day. For the full breakdown of season, weather and moon phase, see when to hunt coyotes.

What’s changing in Colorado

• 16 July 2026 — a two-coyote daily bag limit was adopted, effective 1 September 2026. The Commission set a limit of two per species per day across all seventeen furbearer species on a 6–5 vote, rejecting a staff proposal of four to fifteen and a staff position that there was no biological need for any limit.^{10 14} The Division’s written rationale rests on social acceptance and localized overharvest rather than population data.¹³
• 17 July 2026 — the commercial fur sales ban was killed. A petition from the Center for Biological Diversity that had been advanced to rulemaking was terminated 6–5 on the day after the bag limit vote.¹⁴
• 1 August 2026 — SB25-003 took effect. Buying or receiving a specified semi-automatic firearm now needs a sheriff-issued eligibility card and a firearms safety course; a CPW hunter education card cuts that course from twelve hours to four.³⁰
• May 2026 — the fifteen-round magazine limit was challenged in federal court. The US Department of Justice sued Colorado in the District of Colorado over C.R.S. 18-12-302. The case is at an early stage and the limit remains in force and enforced.²⁹
• 2025 — the unfilled big game license route to coyotes was removed. Big game hunters now need a small game or furbearer license, and a HIP number, to take a coyote.⁷
• 30 April 2020 — killing contests were banned, effective that June, making Colorado the sixth state to do so.⁵⁰

These answers get re-checked before they go stale. The verification date at the top of the page is the record of when that last happened, not decoration.

Anything else worth noting about coyote hunting in Colorado

Colorado is the western state where treating a coyote as vermin will get you into trouble.

Almost everything that makes it a good coyote state — night hunting, electronic calls, thermal, bait, a year-round season — comes from the furbearer classification. And so does everything that constrains it. The direction of travel is one way: a contest ban in 2020, the big game license route closed in 2025, a bag limit in 2026 adopted against staff advice by a single vote, and a fur sales ban that came within one vote of rulemaking in the same week.

Four things to get right:

Buy the license and register for HIP before your first trip. The big game tag in your pocket no longer covers you, and HIP is free and takes a few minutes.

Get night permission in writing. The word “written” is in the private-land rule, and on public land it is a permit from a named wildlife manager that will not be valid over the rifle seasons.

Count to two. Unlimited is still the answer everywhere online and it stopped being true on 1 September 2026.

Check your magazine, not just your rifle. The AR is legal; the 30-round magazine is a misdemeanour, and since 1 August buying the next semi-auto needs an eligibility card.

Is it legal to own a coyote as a pet in Colorado?

No. Colorado prohibits keeping regulated native wildlife as pets, and has done since 1983 — a coyote is a regulated furbearer, and there is no permit that turns one into a pet.⁵¹ Contact CPW before assuming any exception applies.

Know something we missed? Contact me and I’ll get it fixed.