Coyote Hunting in Hawaii — Why There Is None, and What You Can Hunt

Are there coyotes in Hawaii?

Are there coyotes in Hawaii?

No. There is no established coyote population on any Hawaiian island, and no hunting season for them anywhere in the state.

Coyotes reached the rest of the United States by walking. Canis latrans expanded from the western plains across the continent over the last century and a half, filling in the east as wolves were removed — which is why every other page on this site describes a season. Two thousand miles of Pacific stops that expansion cold. Hawaii is the only state a coyote cannot walk to.

Could coyotes survive in Hawaii if they arrived?

Almost certainly, and that is the problem. Hawaii’s climate is benign, and the islands hold exactly what a coyote eats — feral chickens, rats, mice, mongoose, feral cats, ground-nesting seabirds, goat and sheep kids, and pet food on lanais.

They would also find prey with no defenses. Hawaii’s native birds evolved over millions of years with no land mammal predators at all — no cats, no rats, no mongoose, no canids. Ground-nesting species like the nēnē, the ʻuaʻu and the ʻaʻo did not need anti-predator behavior and never developed it. A coyote arriving in Hawaii would not be a new competitor in an existing system; it would be a new kind of threat entirely.

Is there a coyote season, bag limit or license in Hawaii?

No, none of the above. There is no season because there is no population, and DOFAW sets seasons and bag limits for the game mammals Hawaii actually has — see what you can hunt.

The law that keeps them out

Is it legal to bring a coyote to Hawaii?

No — and the legal mechanism is worth understanding, because it is stricter than a simple ban.

Hawaii does not work from a list of forbidden animals. It works from lists of permitted ones, and anything not on a list is prohibited by default. HRS 150A-6.2 sets up three lists — conditionally approved, restricted, and prohibited — and then closes the gap:

Any animal that is not on the lists of conditionally approved, restricted, or prohibited animals shall be prohibited until the board’s review and determination for placement on one of these lists.¹

A coyote appears on none of the three lists. The restricted list’s Canidae entry names only the African hunting dog, the bat-eared fox and the genus Vulpes;² the prohibited list names dog hybrids “crossed with wolf, coyote, dingo, jackal, fox, dhole, African wild dog, racoon dog, bush dog, etc.”³ — hybrids, not the animal itself.

So a pure coyote falls into the default: prohibited, because it has never been reviewed and approved. Hawaii’s Department of Agriculture states the position plainly for the whole group — non-domestic dogs, cats and hybrids such as wolf, wolf cross and dingo are prohibited under plant quarantine law.

Note that this is agriculture law, not wildlife law. Coyote importation is a Department of Agriculture and Plant Quarantine Branch matter, not a DOFAW hunting question — which is why looking for the answer in the hunting regulations turns up nothing.

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

No. Possession follows importation: restricted animals require a permit for both import and possession, and animals on no list at all cannot be lawfully brought in to be possessed in the first place.¹

Hawaii’s dog and cat import law also exists to keep the state rabies-free, which it is and which almost nowhere else in the United States can say. A wild canid is precisely the vector that status is designed to exclude.

What should you do if you think you have seen one?

Report it. Hawaii’s invasive species system is built on early detection, and the animals that have caused the most damage there arrived quietly and were noticed late. The statewide pest hotline is 643-PEST (643-7378), which routes to the Department of Agriculture.

Feral dogs are established on several islands and are the likeliest explanation for a canid glimpsed at distance. Report it anyway and let the agency make the call — a false alarm costs nothing, and the alternative failure mode is the one Hawaii cannot undo.

Why Hawaii guards this so hard

Why does one canid matter this much?

Because Hawaii has already run this experiment, and it went badly.

In 1883 sugar planters released 72 small Indian mongoose on the Hilo–Hāmākua coast to control rats in the cane fields. The rats are nocturnal. The mongoose is diurnal. The two rarely met, the rat problem was not solved, and the mongoose turned instead to what was easy and available — ground-nesting birds, their eggs, and reptiles.

The mongoose is now established on most of the main islands and is a documented factor in the decline of the nēnē, the Hawaiian petrel and Newell’s shearwater. It was not a scientific biocontrol program; it was an industry decision taken without testing diet, range or non-target impacts.

That is the memory every Hawaiian biosecurity rule is written against. The state is not being precious about a coyote — it is refusing to make the same category of mistake twice, with a far more adaptable animal.

Would coyotes control the rats or the mongoose?

This is the argument that gets made whenever the subject comes up, and the mongoose is the reason to distrust it. Introducing a generalist predator to control a specific pest assumes the predator will prefer the pest. Coyotes are the most dietarily flexible canid in North America. They would eat rats, and mongoose, and also nēnē, and seabird chicks, and lambs, and cats.

There is no version of this that Hawaii should want, and no serious proposal to do it.

What you can hunt in Hawaii

Hawaii has no coyotes, but it has a genuine and unusual hunting culture, and public hunting is more accessible than most visitors expect.

What game is there in Hawaii?

Feral pig is the big one, hunted on all the main islands and the most popular hunting activity in the state. Beyond that: feral goat, feral sheep and mouflon sheep, axis deer on Molokai, Lanai and Maui, black-tailed deer on Kauai, and a range of introduced game birds.

Every one of these is itself an introduced species, which is the through-line of Hawaiian hunting — it is managed as conservation work as much as recreation.

Is a hunting license required in Hawaii?

Yes, and it is among the cheapest in the country — around $10 for residents and $95 for non-residents, with hunter education, or a non-resident letter of exemption, required.⁴ Confirm current fees with DLNR before you buy.

Game mammal hunting is governed by Hawaii Administrative Rules Title 13, Chapter 123, which sets the seasons, bag limits, permitted weapons and hunting-unit rules island by island.⁵

Non-resident licensing is separate — see non-residents.

Can a non-resident hunt in Hawaii?

Yes. Public hunting areas are open to non-residents on a non-resident license, and axis deer and mouflon on Molokai and Lanai run on tag and lottery systems, so plan well ahead.

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.

What are the seasons?

They vary enormously by island, unit and species. Feral pig is year-round on public land on all the main islands. Axis deer and mouflon run limited seasons, often weekends only and by lottery draw.

Hawaii’s hunting units are small, the rules differ between them, and a season that is open on one island may be closed on the next. Check the specific unit with DOFAW rather than relying on any statewide summary, including this one.

Can you hunt at night in Hawaii, and are electronic calls or thermal legal?

Hawaii’s game mammal rules are built around daylight hunting in designated units, with dogs and knife or archery methods long established for pigs. Night hunting, artificial light, night vision and thermal are not part of the standard public hunting framework the way they are in the predator states on this site.

Because there are no coyotes, none of the predator-hunting equipment questions this site normally answers has a Hawaiian answer at all. If you are hunting game mammals in Hawaii, read Chapter 123 and your unit’s rules for what is permitted.⁵

Anything else worth knowing

If you have landed here because you were planning a coyote hunt in Hawaii, the answer is that there is nothing to hunt and you should not try to change that.

If you live in Hawaii and hunt: the pigs, goats and axis deer are the real opportunity, the license is cheap, and the units are the thing to research.

And if you are moving to Hawaii with animals, take the quarantine rules seriously and start early. They are the reason the state is rabies-free and coyote-free, and they are enforced.

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

For the 49 states that do have coyotes, start at the state regulations index.