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

Coyote classification & license in Montana

What is the classification of coyotes in Montana?

Coyotes are predatory animals, and the definition is four words long:

“Predatory animal” means coyote, weasel, skunk, and civet cat.¹

What matters is the three categories a coyote is not in, because those are the categories Montana’s prohibitions name:

• Not a game animal. “‘Game animals’ means deer, elk, moose, antelope, caribou, mountain sheep, mountain goat, mountain lion, bear, and wild buffalo.”²
• Not a fur-bearing animal. That term means “marten or sable, otter, muskrat, fisher, mink, bobcat, lynx, wolverine, northern swift fox, and beaver.”²
• Not a game bird, obviously, and not protected wildlife.

FWP puts it plainly: predatory animals and nongame wildlife “are unprotected by federal and/or state law or regulation and can be hunted in Montana year-round without a license by both resident and nonresident hunters.”³

A separate definition lives in Montana’s livestock code, where “predatory animal” includes “coyote, red fox, and any other individual animal causing depredations upon livestock.”⁴ That one governs the county predator control programs, not your hunting. See bounties.

Are coyotes protected in Montana?

No. No closed season, no bag limit, no possession limit, no tag, no reporting.³

Is a hunting license required to hunt coyotes in Montana?

No — with one exception that catches people, and it is about where you stand rather than what you shoot.

Shooting coyotes needs no FWP license at all, resident or non-resident.³ But on state school trust lands you need a license to be there hunting:

The State Lands Recreational License is included in the Conservation License for the purpose of hunting, fishing, and trapping and is required to hunt predators and nongame species on state school trust lands.³

Montana has about five million acres of school trust land, much of it scattered through prime coyote country and much of it looking exactly like the BLM next door. Buy the Conservation License if there is any chance of crossing onto it.

Trapping is a different license question entirely — see trapping.

Non-residents pay nothing to hunt them either — but trapping is where the two diverge sharply. See non-residents.

Is hunter education required in Montana?

Not to shoot coyotes. Montana ties hunter education to the issue of a hunting license — anyone born after 1 January 1985 must show proof of a hunter safety and education course before one is issued⁵ — and a coyote requires no hunting license.

Two adjacent requirements do bite. Trapper education is required of any resident who has not bought a trapper’s license in three prior trapping seasons, and it does not apply to trapping for livestock or property protection.⁶ And if you are buying a Conservation License or any hunting license for other species, the 1985 rule applies to that purchase in the ordinary way.⁵

Can a non-resident hunt coyotes in Montana?

Yes, on identical terms — no license, no fee, no quota. Montana charges non-residents nothing to shoot predators.³

Trapping is where the two diverge sharply: residents need no license to trap predators, and non-residents must buy a $250 non-resident trapping license.^{1 3}

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 & bag limits in Montana

What is the season for coyote hunting in Montana?

Year-round, statewide.³ There is no season structure to close, because predatory animals sit outside the Commission’s season-setting framework.

What is the bag limit for coyotes in Montana?

None. No daily bag, no possession limit.³

What are the legal hunting hours for coyotes in Montana?

None — coyotes may be taken at any hour. Montana sets hunting hours species by species rather than across the board. Bobcat runs “one-half hour before sunrise to one-half hour after sunset each day of the hunting season”; wolves have their own rule; predatory animals and nongame wildlife are given no hours at all.⁷

That is the answer the old version of this page got wrong, by quoting the bobcat line as though it were general. It is not — it is the bobcat line, under the bobcat heading.

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

Yes, with nothing extra required and one thing worth doing anyway.

Hunter orange is not legally required of you. The statute says a person may not “hunt any game animals in this state” without wearing at least 400 square inches of hunter orange above the waist.⁸ Game animals. A coyote hunter is not covered — and in a Montana October, when the same coulee holds three elk hunters who are wearing it because they must, put it on regardless.

Watch the wolf seasons. Wolves and coyotes overlap heavily in western Montana, and the wolf rules are strict, quota-driven and change annually — see protected areas.

Night hunting coyotes in Montana

Can you hunt coyotes at night in Montana?

Yes, with no permit and no closed hours — the only requirement is being lawfully where you are standing.³ On private land that means the landowner’s permission; FWP is explicit that “Permission must be obtained to shoot predators on private land.”³ On state school trust lands it means the Conservation License.

Montana is more permissive here than any of its neighbours. Wyoming closes public-land night hunting for four months and requires an infrared strobe. Colorado requires written permission or a permit. Montana requires neither.

Can you use artificial lights for coyote hunting in Montana?

Yes. This is the clearest case of Montana’s scoping rule doing the work. The artificial-light prohibition reads:

A person may not: (a) hunt or attempt to hunt any game animal or game bird by the aid or with the use of any snare, except as allowed in 87-3-127 and 87-3-128, set gun, projected artificial light, trap, salt lick, or bait⁹

Every method in that list — snares, set guns, projected artificial light, traps, salt licks, bait — is prohibited for game animals and game birds. A coyote is neither, so none of it reaches coyotes. That one subsection answers the light question, the bait question and half the trapping question at once.

Two real limits remain, and neither is in the wildlife code:

Spotting from a vehicle is where hunters get into trouble. Montana’s rule against using a motor-driven vehicle off designated roads applies to anyone “while hunting,” without a species limit.¹⁰ And several widely-shared write-ups cite a statute, “MCA 87-6-210,” for a prohibition on spotting wildlife with a light from a vehicle in combination with a firearm. That section number does not exist — 87-6-209 through 87-6-213 are reserved in the code.¹¹ Treat the claim as unsourced. The rules that genuinely apply to a truck at night are the road and vehicle provisions below.

And you may not shoot from or across a highway right-of-way at all. See vehicles.

Can you use night vision in Montana?

Yes for coyotes. Nothing in Montana law restricts night vision on predatory animals — the equipment statute names snares, set guns, projected light, traps, salt licks and bait, all scoped to game animals and birds, and says nothing about optics for anything else.⁹

The one optics prohibition that applies to all hunting is about tracking, not seeing: no person may, while hunting, “use any electronic motion-tracking device or mechanism, as defined by commission rule, that is designed to track the motion of a game animal and relay information on the animal’s movement to the hunter,” with a radio collar on a lawfully used dog expressly excluded.⁹

Can you use thermal in Montana?

Yes for coyotes, and Montana’s thermal story is worth understanding, because everything you will read about it concerns wolves.

For coyotes there is no restriction of its own.⁹ The catch is deer, elk and antelope season. It is unlawful, while hunting, to use a motion-tracking device “designed to track the motion of a game animal,”⁹ and the Commission’s definition of those devices names “thermal imaging devices” outright.¹² So a thermal is a coyote tool only: never use one on a big game hunt, and keep it off a combined deer-and-coyote outing, where the line between the two is yours to defend.

For wolves there is a whole legislative history: the 2021 Legislature authorized night hunting of wolves on private land with artificial light and night vision, the Commission then added thermal by rule, a court held in 2023 that it had overstepped, and the 2025 Legislature fixed it with HB 259. That is now settled and in the regulations as plain present tense rather than as a future effective date:

Wolves can be hunted on private lands outside of daylight hours with the use of artificial light, night vision scopes, infrared scopes, and thermal imagery scopes. Hunting outside of daylight hours on public lands is prohibited.¹³

Do not read the wolf rule as a limit on coyote hunting. The wolf restrictions are wolf restrictions; a coyote hunter running thermal on private land in western Montana is legal today, and has been. What the wolf rules mean for you is different and more serious: if you are hunting coyotes with thermal at night in wolf country, be certain of what is in the reticle. See protected areas.

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

No. The daytime list applies unchanged, which for coyotes is very nearly no list at all.⁹

Firearms, ammunition & suppressors in Montana

Are suppressors allowed for coyote hunting in Montana?

Yes, if the suppressor is federally registered — and this is one of the few equipment rules in Montana that is not scoped to game animals, so read it carefully:

A person may not … while hunting, use any device or mechanism devised to silence, muffle, or minimize the report of any firearm, whether the device or mechanism is operated from or attached to any firearm. This subsection (1)(c) does not prohibit the use of a device or mechanism registered with the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives⁹

The prohibition covers all hunting. The exception is the ATF registration. A lawfully owned, stamped can is fine; anything else is a hunting offence as well as a federal felony.

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

No restriction. Montana’s firearm rules in the equipment statute are all species-specific and none of them names a coyote — shotguns for deer and elk, rifles for upland birds and spring turkey, muzzleloader specifications for the heritage season.⁹ Nothing applies to predatory animals.

Montana country asks for reach: a flat-shooting centerfire in .223, .22-250, .204 Ruger or .243 covers almost everything. See the best coyote gun.

Are there any ammunition restrictions in Montana?

None for coyotes. Federal refuges set their own non-toxic requirements; check the individual unit.

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

Yes, with no caliber restriction of any kind.⁹ On Montana’s open ground a rimfire is a short-range tool at best, and a wounding tool beyond that.

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

No. Montana sets no magazine capacity limit and no permit or eligibility card to buy a semi-automatic rifle. A standard AR-15 with a 30-round magazine is lawful.

Worth knowing if you road-trip: Colorado caps magazines at fifteen rounds and gates semi-auto purchases behind a sheriff’s eligibility card, and California is stricter again. Wyoming and Idaho match Montana.

Calls, decoys, bait & dogs in Montana

Are electronic calls allowed for coyote hunting in Montana?

Yes — and unusually, coyotes are named in the exception rather than left out of the prohibition:

A person may not … use any recorded or electrically amplified bird or animal calls or sounds or recorded or electrically amplified imitations of bird or animal calls or sounds to hunt wildlife except for predatory animals, wolves, and those birds not protected by state or federal law⁹

So Montana bans electronic calls for wildlife generally and then writes coyotes back in by name. No hours restriction, no volume restriction, no seasonal restriction.

Are decoys allowed for coyote hunting in Montana?

Yes. Montana’s statutory definition of “bait” expressly excludes “decoys, silhouettes, or other replicas of wildlife body forms,” so a decoy is never bait, whatever you are hunting.²

Is baiting allowed for coyote hunting in Montana?

Yes. The baiting prohibition sits in the same sentence as the artificial-light one and carries the same scope — game animals and game birds only.⁹ The statutory definition of bait confirms it: bait is matter placed “for the purpose of attracting game animals or game birds.”² Placed for a coyote, it is not bait within the meaning of the statute at all.

Two cautions that are not wildlife law. A carcass pile is a grizzly bear attractant across most of western and central Montana and can create both a safety problem and a conflict-reporting obligation. And land managers — federal, state and private — set their own rules about carcass dumping.

Can you use dogs to hunt coyotes in Montana?

Yes. No Montana rule restricts the use of dogs on predatory animals. Running coyotes with hounds is long-established on the eastern plains.

Private property, vehicles & public land access in Montana

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

On rural private land, yes — with permission. FWP states the requirement without qualification: “Permission must be obtained to shoot predators on private land.”³

In a town, no. Montana’s city-limits prohibition is scoped to game animals,¹⁴ but municipal discharge ordinances are what actually govern inside a city or town, and they do not care what the animal is classified as.

Can you hunt coyotes from a motorized vehicle in Montana?

The wildlife rule does not reach coyotes. The traffic code does, and that is the one that will catch you.

Montana’s vehicle-hunting statute is scoped: “a person may not hunt or attempt to hunt any game animal or game bird from any self-propelled, motor-driven, or drawn vehicle,” and the same section excludes spotting from a vehicle from the definition of hunting.¹⁰ Its highway counterpart is scoped the same way, to game animals and game birds.¹⁵

Then the motor vehicle code, which is not scoped at all:

Except as provided in 87-2-803(5), a person may not shoot a firearm from or across the right-of-way of a highway.¹⁶

No species limit, no hunting limit — it is a traffic offence, and it applies to a coyote exactly as it applies to a mule deer. This is the single most commonly misunderstood point in Montana coyote hunting: people read the wildlife statute, see “game animal,” conclude the road is fair game, and are wrong.

Two further limits in the vehicle statute apply to anyone “while hunting,” predators included: you may not use a motor-driven vehicle other than on a road or trail designated for travel by the landowner without permission, and you may not use one on a state-land road or trail posted closed by the land management agency.¹⁰

FWP issues a Permit to Hunt From a Vehicle to hunters with qualifying disabilities, which is the lawful route to shooting from a stationary vehicle.¹⁰

Can you hunt coyotes on public land in Montana?

Yes, and Montana has a great deal of it — roughly a third of the state is federal, mostly BLM and National Forest, with about five million acres of state school trust land on top.

Three access points to get right:

State school trust lands need a license. The Conservation License, which includes the State Lands Recreational License, is required to hunt predators there.³

Block Management opens millions of acres of private land to free public hunting through FWP agreements. Coyote hunting is not what most Block Management areas are enrolled for, so check the specific area’s rules and sign in as required.

Corner crossing is not settled in Montana. The 2025 Tenth Circuit decision that made corner crossing lawful covers Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Kansas and Oklahoma — Montana is in the Ninth Circuit and is not bound by it. Do not assume the Wyoming rule travels north.

Is it legal to trap or snare coyotes in Montana?

Yes, and Montana’s trapping rules are the one area where coyotes are regulated in detail. This is where the scoping insight stops paying: the trap prohibition in the equipment statute is scoped to game animals,⁹ but the Commission’s trapping regulations name predatory animals directly.

License. No resident license is required to trap predators. Non-residents must buy a non-resident trapping license, $250.¹

The free Supplemental Trapping Permit. Inside the geographic scope identified by a federal court order — a mapped area of western Montana protecting grizzly bears and lynx — a permit is required on top of everything else:

All trappers conducting trapping activities (except those using water sets or live cage traps) inside of the geographic scope identified by federal court order … must obtain a free “Supplemental Trapping Permit” when targeting nongame (raccoon, badger, red fox) and predatory animals (coyote, striped skunk, spotted skunk, weasel). This includes those trappers already holding a valid trapping license.¹⁷

Inside that area, between 16 February and 31 December, foothold ground sets are capped at an inside jaw spread of 5½ inches and snares must meet break-away and anchoring criteria.¹⁷ Trappers taking coyotes for livestock protection inside the area must sign a declaration naming the producer, unless they are the landowner or lessee.¹⁷

Everywhere. Traps must be identified with the trapper’s name and address or department number, unless set on their own land or a contiguous irrigation ditch right-of-way.³ Non-target captures, including domestic animals, must be reported to FWP within 24 hours.¹⁸ Special rules apply in Lynx Protection Zones, and a trapped lynx that is uninjured must be released immediately and reported within 24 hours.¹⁹

Trapper education is required of residents who have not held a trapper’s license in three prior seasons.⁶

Is it legal to poison coyotes in Montana?

Not as a private individual, and the wildlife code is the wrong place to look for the answer. Montana’s poison-adjacent prohibitions in the equipment statute are scoped to game animals, so Title 87 does not bar poisoning a coyote.⁹ That is authority for “this rule does not cover it,” not for “yes.”

What governs is pesticide law. The M-44 sodium cyanide device and Compound 1080 are restricted-use pesticides placed by certified applicators working for USDA Wildlife Services and the county predator control programs, not by hunters. If you have a depredation problem, the route is your county’s program — see bounties.

Are there protected areas or additional local restrictions in Montana?

Yes, and Montana’s are more consequential than most.

Indian reservations. The Commission has closed all trust lands within reservation boundaries to the hunting and trapping of furbearers with state licenses, and closed all lands inside reservation boundaries to wolf hunting under a state license, with no cooperative agreements currently in place.²⁰ Reservations are separate jurisdictions — get tribal permission before hunting anything on them.

National parks. Yellowstone and Glacier are closed to hunting.

Lynx Protection Zones carry their own trapping restrictions.¹⁹

Wolves are the hazard that matters most. Montana holds a substantial wolf population across the western half of the state, and wolves are managed on quotas with a license, a season and mandatory reporting — skull and hide must be presented to FWP within ten days of harvest.¹⁸ A wolf at distance in poor light, especially through thermal where size cues are unreliable, looks like a very large coyote. Shooting one by mistake is not a paperwork problem. If you are calling in wolf country at night, be certain before you release the shot — FWP publishes its own comparison, and it is reproduced at how to tell a coyote from a wolf.

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

Yes, and the reason is the classification. Montana does have a two-way communication prohibition, and it is a strict one, but read who it names:

“The use of two-way electronic communication is prohibited: While in the act of hunting game animals or wolves to aid in the taking or locating of live animals. While in the act of hunting mountain lion or bobcats with dogs … communication for the use of safety or other legitimate purposes is exempt.”²¹

A coyote is not a game animal in Montana. “Game animals” is a closed list — deer, elk, moose, antelope, caribou, mountain sheep, mountain goat, mountain lion, bear and wild buffalo — and a coyote is a predatory animal instead. See the classification, which is the answer to several questions on this page.

The definition is worth reading even though it does not bind you, because it shows how wide these rules go when they do apply: two-way electronic communication “includes, but is not limited to, the following: radios (walkie-talkies/CB), cell phones, text messages, and the use of social media or other electronic platforms, applications, or programs.”²¹

After the shot: pelts, bounties & contests in Montana

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

No tag, no seal, no inspection, no reporting. Coyotes carry none of the pelt-tagging obligations Montana attaches to bobcat, otter, swift fox, marten or wolf. Nothing restricts taking a coyote or its pelt out of state; the receiving state’s import rules are the only thing to check.

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

You can sell your own pelts without a license. Montana’s fur dealer license attaches to the business of dealing:

Fur Dealer (MCA 87-4-301) – Any person or persons, firm, company, or corporation engaging in or conducting wholly or in part the business of buying or selling, trading or dealing within the state of Montana, in the skins or pelts of any animal or animals²²

Selling what you took to a buyer is not that business. Buying pelts from others to resell is.

Is there a coyote bounty program in Montana?

No statewide bounty — but a county-level predator control system that in places amounts to one.

Montana counties may levy a per-head fee on livestock to fund a local predatory animal control program, and coyotes are what most of that money goes to. Teton County commissioners, for example, approved a $1-per-head annual fee on cattle nine months and older beginning 1 July 2026, collected through November 2026, explicitly to fund predator control aimed at coyotes.²³

Whether any given county pays individual hunters, and on what terms, varies and changes annually. Some fund a contracted trapper or USDA Wildlife Services rather than paying per animal. Ring your county commissioners or extension office before you count on a payment — there is no statewide list, and none of it is administered by FWP.

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

Yes to both. Montana’s contest statute prohibits offering prizes in connection with taking “game, fowl, or fur-bearing animal or any bird or animal protected by law,” with narrow exceptions.²⁴ A coyote is not a game animal, not a fur-bearing animal and not protected by law,² so predator contests fall outside it.

Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Idaho are now the western states where contests remain lawful; Colorado, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Nevada have all banned them.

Coyotes in Montana

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

Yes, in every county — the eastern plains and breaks, the Hi-Line, river bottoms, foothills, mountain valleys and the edges of Billings and Bozeman alike.

Montana publishes no population estimate and no harvest figure, and structurally cannot: there is no license, no tag and no mandatory reporting for coyotes, so nothing enters the state’s data at all. The only quantitative signal is the county predator control programs, and those measure spending rather than animals.

What that means practically is that Montana is huge, lightly hunted for coyotes outside the accessible corridors, and the least crowded good coyote country left.

Are Montana coyotes dangerous to people or pets?

To people, very rarely. To sheep, calves and unattended dogs they are the state’s leading predator problem, which is what the county programs exist to address.²³

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

Breeding runs through February, with pups on the ground from April. January and February are Montana’s months — pairs are territorial and answer hard, pelts are prime, snow makes tracking and spotting easy, and nothing in the regulations closes on you.

When are coyotes most active in Montana?

First and last light year-round, with heavy night movement where they are pressured. For the full breakdown of season, weather and moon phase, see when to hunt coyotes.

How do I tell a coyote from a wolf in Montana?

FWP answers this on the inside back cover of the regulations you are already carrying, and it is the page most coyote hunters never turn to, because everything else in that booklet is about licenses they do not need.

FWP’s own comparison:

Every figure is FWP’s.²⁵

The Montana-specific test is stride length, and it is the one worth memorising, because Montana’s coyote season is a snow season — January and February are the months, and everything that walks leaves a record. FWP prints a canine stride chart for exactly this:²⁶

A wolf’s stride does not overlap a coyote’s. Weight and color can be argued about at 250 yards in flat light; a 48-inch stride in fresh snow cannot. If you cut that track walking into a stand, you now know what may answer your call.

Where the comparison stops working. Thermal is legal for coyotes in Montana with no restriction at all — see night hunting — and thermal removes every column of that table except size, which it renders unreliably. Color is gone, coat is gone, the snout and ear shape survive only at close range. Montana is the state on this site where you are most likely to be making this call through a tube, in the dark, in country holding a substantial wolf population. The snow at your feet on the way in is better evidence than the image in the scope.

The legal cost of getting it wrong. Wolves are a licensed, quota-managed trophy species here with mandatory reporting — skull and hide presented to FWP within ten days.¹⁸ Shooting one on a coyote outing is taking a licensed game animal without a license, out of season, over quota. If it happens, FWP runs a 24-hour line on 1-877-FWP-WILD.²⁷

Anything else about handling a coyote in wolf country?

Yes, and it has nothing to do with paperwork. FWP prints it under “Wolf Parasites” and the instruction names coyotes explicitly:

Wolves commonly carry tapeworm in their intestinal tract called Echinococcus granulosus. There is some risk of humans becoming infected with this parasite. Hunters should wear gloves when field dressing a wolf, coyote, or fox carcass, and wash hands and forearms thoroughly, since they may have come into contact with contaminated feces or fur.²⁸

Latex gloves, minimise contact with fluids, wash tools, carry hand sanitiser. It is the cheapest precaution on this page and the only one that concerns your own health rather than your license.

What’s changing in Montana

• 1 October 2026 — thermal and infrared imaging become legal for hunting wolves after daylight hours on private land, completing a five-year sequence: the 2021 Legislature allowed night wolf hunting on private land with light and night vision, the Commission added thermal by rule, a court held in 2023 that it had exceeded its authority, and HB 259 in 2025 supplied the statutory basis.¹³ None of it restricted coyote hunting at any point.
• 2025–26 season — the Supplemental Trapping Permit’s geographic scope, and the wolf trapping season dates, were revised in response to the federal court order protecting grizzly bears; the mapped area now determines which trapping rules apply to coyote sets.^{18 17}
• 2025–26 season — trapper education became required for any resident who has not bought a trapper’s license in three prior seasons, exempting those trapping for livestock or property protection.⁶
• July 2026 — FWP’s new wolf population model showed the state had been overestimating wolf numbers, and FWP proposed limiting the wolf hunt. Coyote rules are unaffected, but tighter wolf management raises the cost of a misidentification.
• 1 July 2026 — Teton County began levying a $1-per-head livestock fee to fund coyote-focused predator control, an example of the county mechanism that substitutes for a state bounty.²³

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 Montana

Montana asks less of a coyote hunter than any state on this site except Wyoming, and the few things it does ask are easy to miss precisely because everything else is so open.

No license, no season, no limit, no hours, no caliber restriction, no magazine limit, lights, night vision and thermal all legal, e-calls named in the exception, bait legal, dogs legal, contests legal.

Four things to get right:

Buy the Conservation License if you might touch state trust land. Five million acres of it, and it does not look different from the BLM beside it.

Never shoot from or across a highway right-of-way. The wildlife statute’s road rule is scoped to game animals and misses coyotes; the traffic code’s is not scoped at all and does not.

Get the free Supplemental Trapping Permit if you set anything but a water set or live cage trap inside the mapped western Montana area — coyote is named in it.

Know a wolf when you see one. The one Montana mistake that turns a legal coyote hunt into a serious case is pulling the trigger on the wrong canid. FWP prints the comparison on the inside back cover; it is set out at how to tell a coyote from a wolf, along with the stride-length test that works in snow when the animal itself is gone.

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

No. Montana requires a permit from FWP before possessing live wild animals, and no permit is issued to keep a coyote as a pet. Contact FWP before assuming any exception applies.

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