Utah Thermal Hunting Law: The Possession Rule That Catches Coyote Hunters

What the rule says

The rule is in Utah’s big game regulations, R657-5. Two parts matter.

The prohibition: “A person may not possess any night vision device, or a device capable of night vision, while taking, locating, or attempting to locate any big game animal between July 31 and December 31.”² The 2026 Big Game Field Regulations guidebook says the same thing in plainer words on page 36.³

The definition: a “night vision device” is any device that enhances visible or non-visible light, “including night vision, thermal imaging, infrared imaging, or electronics that enhance the visible or non-visible light spectrum.”⁴ Trail cameras are carved out by name.⁴

Three things in that wording do the work:

• “Possess.” The 2024 change replaced “use” with “possess” on purpose.⁵ A thermal in your pack is the violation. You don’t have to be looking through it.
• “Locating, or attempting to locate.” Scouting counts. So does glassing a hillside before the hunt and helping a buddy find his animal.
• “Any big game animal.” In Utah that’s deer, elk, pronghorn, moose, bighorn sheep, mountain goat and bison.

Coyotes aren’t big game. They’re not protected wildlife at all under Utah law,⁶ and no Utah rule bans thermal for hunting them. The DWR’s own furbearer guidebook flags the overlap, though: if you’re hunting furbearers and also hold a big game permit, “please be aware of this restriction.”⁷

Where coyote hunters get caught

The rule doesn’t reach a coyote-only hunt. It reaches you the moment the hunt is about big game too, and in the fall in Utah those two are hard to separate.

You’re holding a deer or elk tag. If you’re in the field during your hunt with a tag in your pocket, you’re hunting big game, and the thermal you’d carry for a coyote is now a thermal on a big-game hunt. Calling coyotes in the morning and hunting your buck in the afternoon on the same outing is the classic way to get there.

You’re in deer country in October with a rifle and a thermal. Through a thermal, a doe on a hillside shows up just like a coyote does. An officer who finds you scanning a basin full of mule deer during the rifle hunt has to decide what you were looking for. When the DNR’s law enforcement briefed the Wildlife Board in January, the message was that simple possession of a thermal during that window is illegal, and that a hunter’s partner spotting with one counts as hunting too.⁸

You’re helping someone else. A friend with a tag asks you to bring your thermal and help find his elk, or find the one he hit at last light. That’s locating big game with a night vision device, and the possession is yours.

After dark, the light rule adds to it. Utah treats a spotlight or other artificial light in places where protected wildlife are generally found as probable cause that you’re trying to locate them.⁹ That rule is written about lights, not thermals. But in Utah deer are generally found nearly everywhere, which is why night coyote hunting there runs through county ordinances (below).

What the board heard in January also cuts the other way: a thermal sitting in the truck isn’t treated the same as one carried in the field while hunting.⁸

Thermal at night

Utah rewrote its night hunting law in May 2025. The statute now defines a “light enhancement device” as including “a spotlight, thermal vision, and night vision,”⁶ and allows night hunting of nonprotected wildlife only “when allowed by a county ordinance.”¹⁰ So after dark, a thermal is treated exactly like a lamp: legal where your county has an ordinance and you follow its terms, illegal where it doesn’t.

Seven counties are confirmed to allow it with a permit, and several of them close night hunting over the deer hunt. The county list, the permit fees and the questions to ask the sheriff are on the Utah coyote hunting page.

Someone protecting their own crops or livestock from predators, or their agent, is outside the county requirement.¹⁰ That’s a depredation exception, not a recreational one.

Hunters who got caught

Utah hasn’t released names, locations or outcomes from this fall’s citations, and we found no Utah thermal case reported by name in the news. The DNR did tell the Wildlife Board in January that thermal use is concentrated in the limited-entry units, and asked the public for photos, video, GPS points and license plates when they see it.⁸

Neighboring states have published theirs, and they show how these cases go.

• Oregon, October 2025: cited in daylight, nothing killed. At 11:28 a.m. during the general rifle buck season near Sweet Home, an Oregon State Police officer contacted a hunter about a thermal. He admitted using it, was cited for hunting, locating or scouting with a thermal device, and had his rifle seized.¹¹ Oregon bans thermal for hunting all year, but the case is the closest thing on record to Utah’s possession rule: no animal, no night, and still a citation and a lost rifle.
• Oregon, December 2024: thirteen arrests in two days. After two years of complaints, OSP troopers served nine search warrants in Clackamas County, arrested 13 people and seized 14 thermal devices, a rifle and four deer. Troopers also cited three more hunters they found using thermals in the field during the investigation.^{12 13}
• Wyoming, January 2024: more than $137,000 and up to 27 years. Three men used thermal rifle scopes and spotlights to kill mule deer and elk at night in Campbell and Johnson counties. Their pleas came to more than $137,000 in fines and restitution, 30 to 60 days in jail each, and the loss of hunting, fishing and trapping privileges for 20, 23 and 27 years.¹⁴
• Arkansas, December 2022: the scope kept the evidence. A hunter stopped near a national wildlife refuge had a suppressed rifle with a thermal scope. Its memory card held 57 videos and images of night hunting, and the investigation tied him to as many as 22 deer. He paid $15,000 in fines, forfeited his rifles and optics, and drew a seven-year suspension honored across the Interstate Wildlife Violator Compact.¹⁵
• Louisiana, December 2024: the thermal was its own charge. A hunter seen shooting a buck from his stand after legal hours admitted taking ten antlered deer over two seasons, seven of them at night with a thermal-scoped crossbow. Possessing a crossbow fitted with a thermal scope was one of the charges, and he faces up to $17,427 in civil restitution.¹⁶

Two lessons carry over to Utah. Officers are working these cases on purpose now, with tips, warrants and patrols. And many thermal scopes record by default, so the device that got you cited can also hold the evidence.

Penalties

The charge depends on what you’re caught doing. Utah’s code makes breaking a Wildlife Board rule an infraction on its own and breaking the wildlife statute a Class B misdemeanor.¹⁷ The DNR’s announcement puts these cases at a Class B misdemeanor and up.¹

If an animal is killed, it can become a felony. Wanton destruction of protected wildlife is a third-degree felony when the animal is a trophy or the total value tops 500 points (a deer counts 400 and an elk 750).¹⁸ A trophy buck deer is 24 inches or wider outside; a trophy bull elk has six points on at least one side.⁶

Restitution has a floor, not a ceiling. The DNR’s post says restitution can reach $12,000 for trophy animals and up to $45,000 for some once-in-a-lifetime species.¹ The statute sets those as minimums: at least $12,000 for a trophy deer or elk, $45,000 for a bighorn sheep, $9,000 for a moose, mountain goat or bison, and $3,000 for a pronghorn.¹⁹

You can lose your hunting privileges, in more states than Utah. A suspension can run up to seven years for a felony, five for a Class A misdemeanor and three for a Class B, and it can be doubled for a trophy animal.²⁰ Utah belongs to the Interstate Wildlife Violator Compact, so member states honor each other’s suspensions.²¹

Your gear goes too. The thermal, and often the rifle, are seized as evidence, as in every case above.

How to stay legal

• Daytime coyote hunting with a thermal is legal in Utah, as long as you aren’t also hunting or locating big game.
• Keep coyote outings and big-game outings separate from July 31 to December 31. If you’re carrying a big game tag that day and hunting it, leave the thermal at home.
• Don’t use a thermal to help anyone find big game, including a wounded animal, in that window.
• At night, confirm your county first. A thermal after dark is legal only under a county ordinance, usually with a permit, and several counties close over the deer hunt. Start with the county list.
• Carry what makes a predator hunt look like one: a call, a coyote setup, a rifle that fits the game. It won’t change the rule, but it helps an officer read the situation.
• Trail cameras aren’t night vision devices under this rule,⁴ but they have their own season limits. The Utah page covers them.
• Assume a thermal scope records. Check what yours saves before you need to.

Why the internet disagrees

Search this and you’ll find three different rules, and a few gear sellers’ charts that still call Utah “legal statewide.” The rule changed twice:

• March 2022: the board banned using a night vision device from 48 hours before any big game hunt in the area through 48 hours after it.²²
• July 2023: a fixed window replaced that, using one from July 31 to January 31.²²
• July 2024: “use” became “possess,” and the end date moved to December 31 to match the trail camera season.⁵ That’s the rule today.

If what you’re reading mentions 48 hours or January 31, it’s out of date.

My take

I don’t defend anyone running a thermal on a deer hunt. In Utah’s limited-entry units, where a tag can take twenty years to draw, it’s the worst kind of cheating, and the people doing it make it harder for the rest of us to keep the tool for coyotes.

But a possession rule puts lawful coyote hunters inside the same net. If you hunt predators in deer country in the fall, keep the outings separate and know your county’s rules, and you’ll never have to explain yourself.

If you hunt Utah, add your voice below. Tell me how this rule changes the way you hunt.

For the rest of the West, the thermal law map has every state, and Nevada’s proposed seasonal thermal ban is the one to watch next door. If you’re still choosing a scope, here are the thermals I’d buy.