Coyote Hunting South Carolina, Laws, Regulations, Season, & License Info

Coyote classification & license in South Carolina

What is the classification of coyotes in South Carolina?

A furbearing animal — and, uniquely among South Carolina’s furbearers, not also small game. That second half is where the useful answers come from.

The guide lists the furbearers by name:

The following species are legally classified as furbearers and may be taken by hunting or trapping during the open season: beaver, bobcat, coyote, gray fox, red fox, mink, muskrat, opossum, otter, raccoon, spotted skunk, striped skunk, and weasel.¹

Then, two pages later, it draws the line that does the work:

Except for coyotes, all furbearing animals are also classified as small game and cannot be taken with electronic calls.²

So a South Carolina coyote is a furbearer that is not small game and not a game animal. That is why electronic calls are legal for it and for nothing else, and it is why the coyote gets its own night hunting statute rather than sitting under the raccoon and fox one.

Do not read the classification as a general license, though. South Carolina’s sharpest rules — the night hunting registration, the 300-yard rule — name coyotes explicitly, so there is no category to sit outside of. Read the statute, not the label.

Are coyotes protected in South Carolina?

No. The statute is one sentence long:

There is no closed season for hunting or taking coyotes with weapons.³

No closed season, no bag limit, no tag, no harvest report. SCDNR estimates hunters kill about 25,000 coyotes a year in South Carolina, most of them incidentally while deer hunting.⁴

Is a hunting license required to hunt coyotes in South Carolina?

Yes — with one genuinely free exception close to the house.

A hunting license is required, however there is no closed season on hunting feral hogs, coyotes, and armadillos on private land statewide during daylight hours.[^sc-hunting-licence]

The State Hunting License is $12 for a resident and $125 for a non-resident, both annual.⁵ Residents can buy three years for $36; non-residents can buy 10 days for $75 or 3 days for $40.⁵

The 100-yard exemption. Within one hundred yards of your own home, on your own property, you need nothing at all:

A depredation permit or license is not required by the property owner, or his or her designee, when capturing furbearing animals or squirrels within one-hundred yards of the owner’s home when the animals are causing damage to the owner’s property. Animals captured under this exemption may not be relocated and must be released on site or destroyed.⁶

The statute behind it is §50-11-2570(B).⁷ Note the two conditions people skip: it is the owner’s home, and the animal must be causing damage. And it extends to a designee — a friend, a relative, anyone the property owner names.

Depredation permits are free and available year-round from any SCDNR office or conservation officer, and they let a property owner or their designee trap or shoot damage-causing coyotes without a license and outside any season.⁸ Animals taken under one may not be relocated, sold, traded, exchanged or bartered.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?

Yes, on a fixed birth date:

All residents and nonresidents born after June 30, 1979 must successfully complete a hunter education course that is approved by SCDNR before a hunting license can be obtained.⁹

There is a way round it for one year at a time: the Apprentice License, $12 for a resident annual or $50 for a non-resident 3-day, is available to “Hunting license applicants born after June 30, 1979, who do not hold a hunter education certification.”⁵ It is small game only.

Can a non-resident hunt coyotes in South Carolina?

Yes, on the same terms as a resident once the license is bought. There is no non-resident restriction on coyotes, no separate predator license and no zone limit.

At $125 for the annual, or $40 for three days, the short license is the one to look at if you are coming for a weekend.⁵ A non-resident who intends to trap needs the Commercial Fur Harvest License at $200 on top of the hunting license.¹⁰

The $3,000 reward is not restricted to residents — the exclusions are SCDNR employees, members of the General Assembly and their immediate families.¹¹ See the $3,000 coyote.

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 South Carolina

What is the season for coyote hunting in South Carolina?

Year-round on private land, in daylight, with a hunting license.¹² There is no closed season by statute.³

Two other seasons sit alongside it and are easy to confuse with it:

• Trapping: 1 December to 1 March, with a Commercial Fur Harvest License.¹³
• Night hunting: any day of the year, but only on a registered property. See night hunting.

On WMA land the answer is different, and it is not year-round — see public land.

What is the bag limit for coyotes in South Carolina?

None, on private land or WMA. The WMA regulation says so directly: coyotes “may be hunted during any open season for game during daylight hours with no bag limit.”¹⁴

What are the legal hunting hours for coyotes in South Carolina?

This is where South Carolina is more precise than most states, and the precision is worth an hour of your evening.

“Night” is defined for the whole night-hunting article:

“Night” means the period of time between one hour after official sundown of a day and one hour before official sunrise of the following day.¹⁵

So on unregistered private land you are not restricted to sunset. You may keep hunting until one hour after sundown, and start again one hour before sunrise, without touching the night hunting rules at all. Past that line, everything in night hunting applies.

Can you hunt coyotes on Sunday in South Carolina?

On private land, yes, for all game, statewide. On WMA land, no, unless that specific WMA is named as an exception:

Hunting is prohibited on Sundays on all WMA lands unless otherwise specified. On private lands statewide, Sunday hunting for all game is legal.¹⁶

SCDNR’s own WMA regulations state the baseline flatly — “No Sunday hunting is permitted on any WMA lands”¹⁷ — and limited Sunday opportunities have been added on a named subset of WMAs and national forests during specified seasons. Check the individual WMA listing in the Game Zones section before you plan a Sunday on public ground; do not assume the exception covers the tract you are standing on.

For a coyote hunter this is largely academic on public land anyway, because WMA coyote hunting is tied to an open game season in the first place.

Can you hunt coyotes during deer or big game season?

Yes, and on private land nothing changes.

On WMA land, deer season is what gives you your coyote season. Coyotes may be hunted there “during any open season for game during daylight hours,” and “Weapon(s) used to hunt armadillos and coyotes are limited to the weapon(s) that are allowed for the current open season on WMA.”¹⁴ On an archery-only hunt, that means a bow.

One rule to know even on private land at night: displaying artificial light on unregistered property in a manner capable of disclosing the presence of deer, bear or turkey, while holding or having immediate access to a centerfire rifle with ammunition larger than a .22 rimfire, “shall constitute prima facie evidence of night hunting for deer, bear, or turkey.”¹⁸ That is a deer-poaching presumption, and registering the property is what takes you out of it.

Night hunting coyotes in South Carolina

Can you hunt coyotes at night in South Carolina?

Yes — and once the property is registered, South Carolina is one of the most permissive night states in the country. The whole of §50-11-715 turns on that one word:

Feral hogs, coyotes, and armadillos may be hunted at night on registered property on which a person has a lawful right to hunt: (a) with any legal firearm, bow and arrow, or crossbow; and (b) with or without the aid of bait, electronic calls, artificial light, or night vision devices.¹⁹

Everything a coyote hunter wants is in subsection (b), granted expressly rather than inferred. What it costs you is paperwork.

How registration works. The landowner registers the property with SCDNR online at dnr.sc.gov/nighthunt, giving the tax map number, county, acreage and bordering roads.²⁰ It must be renewed annually, and a report of the previous year’s night hunting activity has to be filed before the property can be registered again:

Property registration to the SCDNR is required once annually as prescribed by SCDNR for each property. A brief, annual report of each registered property’s night hunting activities is required to re-register a property the following year.²¹

Properties for which reports have not been submitted will not be registered again until such time that the reports are submitted.²⁰

The registration also covers feral hogs and armadillos on the same property, and the night hunting year runs 1 January to 31 December regardless of when in the year you register.²⁰

Two hard limits inside the permission:

• The 300-yard rule. It is unlawful to “hunt feral hogs, coyotes, or armadillos at night with a firearm within three hundred yards of a residence without the permission of the occupant.” This does not apply to a landowner hunting on his own land, or to anyone taking coyotes under an SCDNR depredation permit.¹⁹ In the Lowcountry and around the growing Upstate, 300 yards is a real constraint — walk it before you set the stand.
• No paved roads. It is unlawful to “shoot or attempt to shoot a feral hog, coyote, or armadillo, at night, from, on, or across any public paved road.”¹⁹

And a five-year bar on who may do it at all: “Persons who have been convicted of night hunting for deer, bear, or turkey during the previous five years are not eligible to participate in night hunting for feral hogs, coyotes, or armadillos.”¹⁹

If the property is not registered, there is exactly one other route: an SCDNR depredation permit, obtained from a local conservation officer.²² There is no third option.

Can you use artificial lights for coyote hunting in South Carolina?

Yes, on registered property, expressly named in the statute.¹⁹ No color restriction, no wattage cap, no power-source limit — nothing like North Dakota’s six-volt rule.

On unregistered property, a light plus a centerfire rifle after dark is the prima facie deer-poaching evidence described above.¹⁸ The gap between “registered” and “not registered” is the gap between the most permissive night rule in the Southeast and a serious charge.

On WMA land, never: “Feral hog, coyotes, and armadillos cannot be hunted at night on WMA lands.”²³

Can you use night vision in South Carolina?

Yes, on registered property. “Night vision devices” are named in §50-11-715(B)(1)(b) alongside bait, electronic calls and artificial light.¹⁹

Can you use thermal in South Carolina?

Yes — and the reason is a definition, so it is worth knowing where it lives. The statute names night vision but not thermal. The guide supplies the definition:

Devices that amplify light using any type of power source including any having an electronic screen other or similar digital viewfinder, are considered artificial light (including night vision or infrared/thermal imaging equipment). This does not include traditional illuminated scope reticles or dots.²⁴

That definition sits in the trapping and furbearer section, where its job is restrictive — it is what stops a raccoon hunter using a thermal under §50-11-710, which bans artificial light except when the animal is treed or cornered with dogs.

For a coyote hunter it does the opposite, because §50-11-715 permits artificial light on registered property.¹⁹ Thermal is artificial light; artificial light is allowed; thermal is allowed. Illuminated reticles are expressly outside the definition, so a lit dot is not a light in any context.²⁴

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

No, beyond “legal”. The statute allows night coyote hunting “with any legal firearm, bow and arrow, or crossbow.”¹⁹ There is no caliber cap of the kind South Dakota applies at night, no shot-size limit and no magazine limit.

The ammunition limits that do exist in South Carolina’s night rules — no buckshot or shot larger than #4, no rifle ammunition larger than a .22 rimfire — are written into §50-11-710 for raccoons, opossums, foxes, mink and skunks.²⁵ Coyotes are governed by §50-11-715 instead, and that section carries no such limit.

What does apply: the 300-yard rule, the paved-road rule, and the requirement to be on registered property.¹⁹

The $3,000 coyote

South Carolina pays more for a single coyote than any other state on this site, and it has done so continuously since 2016.

The Coyote Harvest Incentive Program was established with a 2016 Legislative budget proviso, directing SCDNR to annually tag and release four coyotes per game zone (16 total). The reward for reporting a tagged coyote will be $3,000 to the hunter/trapper reporting the tagged coyote, or their designee. No hunter/trapper may collect the reward on more than two coyotes per fiscal year. Only SCDNR reward tags are eligible. Employees of SCDNR, members of the General Assembly, and their immediate families are not eligible to receive a reward. This incentive program has continued each year since 2016. At the time of this printing, 144 SCDNR-tagged coyotes have been released with approximately half still remaining.²⁶

The details that matter in the field:

• The tags carry their own contact information, and only SCDNR reward tags qualify.¹¹
• A coyote tagged in any year is still worth the money. They do not expire, which is why roughly seventy of the 144 released are still out there.^{11 26}
• You can nominate someone else for the payment — “a child, relative, or friend.”¹¹
• The reward was not always $3,000. It began as a free lifetime hunting license; from July 2023 the proviso was modified to a $3,000 cash reward.¹¹

One caution, and it is the reason this section exists rather than a line in the bounty answer. The program rests on an annually renewed budget proviso, not on a statute. It has been renewed every year since 2016, but a proviso is renewed one budget at a time. Confirm the current amount with SCDNR before you build a season around it.

Firearms, ammunition & suppressors in South Carolina

What firearms are allowed or restricted for coyote hunting in South Carolina?

On private land, any legal firearm, bow or crossbow, day or night.¹⁹ SCDNR sets no caliber floor or ceiling for coyotes.

SCDNR’s own advice on what works: “Smaller caliber centerfire rifles, where safe and legal to use, are capable of killing coyotes at relatively long ranges. A shotgun may be desirable when attempting to shoot coyotes at close range or in heavier cover types. Usually the smaller sizes of buckshot, such as #4, are preferred over the larger sizes.”²⁷ In South Carolina cover, the shotgun answer is a more serious one than it would be on the plains.

On WMA land your weapon is dictated by the season in progress, not by the coyote.¹⁴ See the best coyote gun.

Are suppressors allowed for coyote hunting in South Carolina?

Yes. South Carolina places no wildlife-law restriction on hunting with a suppressor — nothing in Title 50 Chapter 11 addresses them at all. The question is federal: ATF Form 4, tax stamp, approval.

Are there any ammunition restrictions?

Not for coyotes. SCDNR answers this one directly in its own FAQ:

Q: Is there a caliber restriction or magazine restriction when hunting deer, hogs or coyotes on private land? A: NO, there is no caliber or magazine restriction for firearms used to hunt deer, hogs or coyotes on private land.²⁸

The #4-shot and .22-rimfire ammunition caps in South Carolina’s night rules belong to §50-11-710 and the raccoon-and-fox species list, not to coyotes.²⁵

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

Yes. No South Carolina rule sets a minimum caliber for coyotes on private land.²⁸ In the thick cover where most South Carolina coyotes are shot, a rimfire is a close-range tool and a shotgun is usually the better one.

Is there a magazine capacity limit for hunting coyotes in South Carolina?

No, on private land or WMA. SCDNR: “There is no magazine restrictions on WMA lands,” and no caliber or magazine restriction on private land.²⁸ A standard AR-15 with a 30-round magazine is lawful for coyotes.

Calls, decoys, bait & dogs in South Carolina

Are electronic calls allowed for coyote hunting in South Carolina?

Yes, and the coyote is named in the statute as the exception that makes it so:

It is unlawful for a person to hunt, take, or attempt to hunt, or take a game bird or game animal by the use or aid of recorded calls or sounds or recorded or electronically amplified imitations of calls or sounds. This section does not apply to the hunting and taking of coyotes.²⁹

That exception was added in 2012.²⁹ It works because a coyote is the one South Carolina furbearer that is not also classified as small game — see classification.

The permission is broad: “it is legal to use electronic calls during the day or night for hunting coyotes on private lands and during the day on WMA lands where hunting for coyotes is allowed.”² E-calls are among the four things §50-11-715 expressly permits at night on registered property.¹⁹

Are decoys allowed for coyote hunting in South Carolina?

Yes, including motion decoys. Nothing in Title 50 restricts decoys for coyotes.

Is baiting allowed for coyote hunting in South Carolina?

On private land, yes, day or night. “Coyotes may be hunted with or without bait,”¹³ and bait is one of the four aids §50-11-715 names for registered-property night hunting.¹⁹

On WMA land, never — not for coyotes, not for anything: “On all WMA lands, baiting or hunting over a baited area is prohibited,” and an area stays a baited area for ten days after the bait is completely removed.³⁰

Bait and body-gripping traps do not mix: “No bait is allowed to be used with body-gripping traps.”³¹

Can you use dogs to hunt coyotes in South Carolina?

Yes on private land, all year:

Dog hunting for feral hogs and coyotes is allowed year-round on private lands statewide.³²

On WMA land in Game Zones 1 and 2 there is a carve-out: “feral hogs and coyotes may not be hunted with dogs during still gun and muzzleloader hunts for deer or bear.”³²

South Carolina also has a serious statute about dogs crossing property lines. §50-11-770 defines “hunting” to include “attempting to take any game animal, hog, or coyote by occupying stands, standing, or occupying a vehicle while … possessing, carrying, or having readily accessible: a centerfire rifle with ammunition capable of being fired in that rifle; or a shotgun with shot size larger than number four.”³³ Running hounds onto ground you do not have rights to, while holding a rifle on the road, is the conduct that section is written for.

Private property, vehicles & public land access in South Carolina

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

On rural private land with permission, yes — and inside 100 yards of your own home you need no license or permit at all if the animal is causing damage.⁶

At night on your own land you are also outside the 300-yard rule, which does not apply “to a landowner hunting on his own land.”¹⁹ You still need the property registered, unless you are working under a depredation permit.²¹

In town, municipal discharge ordinances govern and the state does not publish them. The SCDNR guidance is blunt about it: check local firearms ordinances first.²²

Can you hunt coyotes from a motorized vehicle in South Carolina?

Not from, on or across a paved road at night — that is an express prohibition in §50-11-715.¹⁹

The wider constraint is §50-11-770, which treats occupying a vehicle with a centerfire rifle readily accessible as hunting for the purposes of the dog-trespass offence.³³ Between that and the paved-road rule, road hunting is not a South Carolina strategy.

Can you hunt coyotes on public land in South Carolina?

Yes, but WMA rules are a different regime from private land, and the differences all cut the same way.

On WMA lands, hunting armadillos and coyotes at night is prohibited. Armadillos and coyotes may be hunted during any open season for game during daylight hours with no bag limit. Weapon(s) used to hunt armadillos and coyotes are limited to the weapon(s) that are allowed for the current open season on the WMA.¹⁴

So on public ground: no night hunting, no baiting, no Sunday hunting unless specified, no season of your own, and no weapon of your own choosing. What you do get is electronic calls — “The use of electronic calls for feral hog and coyote hunting is permitted statewide on WMA lands”³² — and no bag limit.

You also need a WMA permit on top of your hunting license: “No person may hunt or take wildlife on WMA land unless an individual is in possession of a valid South Carolina license; a valid WMA permit; and other applicable federal or state permits, stamps, or licenses.”³⁴

There is no trapping on WMA or Heritage Preserve land at all.³⁵

Is it legal to trap or snare coyotes in South Carolina?

Trap yes, snare no — and the snare answer is the one that catches out-of-state trappers.

Cable restraints (snares) may be used in water sets only.³¹

Every coyote set is a land set, so snares are effectively unavailable for coyotes in South Carolina. Legal traps are footholds with an inside jaw spread of 5¾ inches or smaller on land, enclosed footholds of the dog-proof type, body-gripping traps in water or slide sets only, and live traps.³¹

Season: 1 December to 1 March, with a Commercial Fur Harvest License at $25 resident, $200 non-resident, plus a valid South Carolina hunting license regardless of age.^{13 10} Non-commercial trapping requires a hunting license and caps you at five furbearers.¹³

Traps must be checked at least once daily between two hours before sunrise and two hours after sunset, must carry the owner’s name and address or SCDNR customer ID, and require written permission from the landowner, carried on you while trapping.^{35 31}

One paperwork duty is coyote-specific and easy to miss, and it exists because South Carolina still has a live-animal trade:

a trapper shall maintain an accurate daily record of all live fox and coyote sales or transfers on forms provided by SCDNR. These live fox and coyote transaction forms must be retained by the trapper and made available for reasonable inquiry by SCDNR employees.³⁶

A daily record, on SCDNR’s own form, kept by you rather than filed. If you are trapping coyotes alive and moving them on at all, that record is part of the job.

Outside the season, or without a license, the route is a free depredation permit, which allows trapping year-round on a specific site.⁸ Hunt clubs and large hunting properties can also apply for a Predator Management Permit, valid only outside the trapping season, with a year-end harvest report.³⁷

Is it legal to poison coyotes in South Carolina?

No, and SCDNR says so in the plainest terms it uses anywhere:

No toxicants are registered for use on coyotes in South Carolina. The use of any poison to control predators in South Carolina is a violation of State and Federal law.³⁸

SCDNR also makes the practical argument: coyotes learn to avoid poisoned baits, and “the use of illegal poisoning is more likely to affect nontarget wildlife and pets.”³⁸

Are there protected areas or additional local restrictions in South Carolina?

Yes.

WMA and Heritage Preserve land carries the whole restricted regime above, including a total ban on night hunting and on trapping.^{14 35}

The Francis Marion National Forest bars fox and coyote hunting with dogs outright.³⁹

The 300-yard residence rule is the local restriction that bites most often at night, and it is measured from any residence, not just the neighbours you know about.¹⁹

Municipal ordinances govern discharge in and near towns, and South Carolina’s coyote problem is increasingly a suburban one.

After the shot: pelts, rewards & contests in South Carolina

Are there regulations for possessing or transporting dead coyotes or pelts across state lines?

No tag, no seal, no check-in for a dead coyote. South Carolina’s CITES tagging requirement attaches to bobcat and otter, not to coyote.⁴⁰

Shipping certificates are no longer required, but SCDNR will issue one if the receiving state wants it — give a conservation officer 48 hours’ notice so the package can be inspected.⁴¹

Live coyotes are a different matter entirely, and this is where South Carolina is strict. Possession or transport of a live coyote is allowed “only by licensed trappers during the trapping season and thirty days after the close of the trapping season, or by special permit from SCDNR,” and “Importation of coyotes into the state is a violation of both State and Federal law.”³⁶

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

You can, with a Commercial Fur Harvest License — $25 resident, $200 non-resident. “The pelts of these animals may be sold with a valid commercial fur harvest license.”^{1 10}

Be realistic about the money: “Although western pelts may bring relatively high values from time to time, a strong market has not developed for the eastern coyote.”⁴² The live-animal market to permitted fox and coyote hunting enclosures is worth more, and it is open only to licensed trappers during the season.^{42 43}

Buying whole furbearers or raw pelts from others requires a separate Fur Buyer’s License at $100 resident, $200 non-resident, with a monthly reporting duty.⁴⁴ Anyone who takes or possesses more than five furbearers, or takes any for sale, trade, exchange or barter, needs the Commercial Fur Harvest License.¹⁰

Is there a coyote bounty program in South Carolina?

Not a bounty — something better and much narrower. South Carolina pays nothing per animal. It pays $3,000 for one of roughly seventy specifically tagged coyotes still at large, capped at two per hunter per fiscal year.²⁶ See the $3,000 coyote.

SCDNR is candid about why it is not a bounty. Its own coyote publication notes that “Various coyote incentive programs have been tried over the years throughout the United States, with the stated goal being to reduce or eliminate coyotes; however, there has been very little to show for these efforts in terms of positive results.”⁴⁵ The tagged-coyote program is designed as an incentive to hunt, not as a population control measure.

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

Yes to both. South Carolina has not banned predator hunting contests, and nothing in Title 50 restricts them. Winter tournaments run across the Carolinas, several of them straddling the North Carolina line.

Two scheduling points for organizers. Any night round needs every participating property registered with SCDNR in advance, and registration is the landowner’s job, not the hunter’s.²¹ And a WMA cannot be part of a night round at all.²³

Coyotes in South Carolina

Are there coyotes in South Carolina? How many, and where?

Yes — in all 46 counties, and they got here recently.

Populations in South Carolina were established in Pickens and Oconee counties in the late 1970s by both houndsmen and natural immigration. Coyotes have since expanded to include all counties in the State. However, even if no illegal importation had taken place, coyotes would still have become established in South Carolina.⁴⁶

SCDNR publishes no population estimate, but it does publish a harvest figure: based on deer hunter surveys, hunters kill approximately 25,000 coyotes annually in South Carolina, most of it incidental to deer hunting.⁴

They are everywhere the habitat allows, which in South Carolina is everywhere: “mountainous regions, swamps, dense forests as well as suburban and even some urban areas.”⁴⁷

And SCDNR addresses the rumour head on, because it comes up on every South Carolina hunting forum: the department “did not import coyotes into South Carolina to control the white-tailed deer population, or for any other reason,” and points out that coyotes first appeared in the Upstate, where deer were still being reintroduced at the time.⁴⁶

Are South Carolina coyotes dangerous to people or pets?

To people, very rarely. To pets, occasionally and predictably: “On occasion, coyotes will prey on domestic pets, especially cats. Pet predation is usually due to the territorial nature of the coyote and lack of an alternative prey base in suburban areas.”⁴⁸

To deer, the answer is more interesting than in most states. Research at the Savannah River Site in Aiken and Barnwell counties “shown that coyote predation on fawns can impact recruitment, and fawns can be particularly vulnerable to predation for the first 6 to 8 weeks after birth,” and that when combined with hunter harvest the predation appears to be additive rather than compensatory.⁴⁹ That study is the single strongest argument for coyote control in the Southeast, and it came from South Carolina ground.

SCDNR’s suburban advice: feed pets indoors, keep cats in, walk dogs on a short leash in open areas, and “If a coyote is seen, act aggressively towards the animal, but do not run.”⁵⁰

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

Coyotes are generally monogamous, with breeding among the dominant resident pair beginning in January and continuing into March. … The gestation period is 63 days, and the average litter size is 5 to 7.⁵¹

Pups begin leaving the den at three to four weeks, are weaned at eight to nine, and the family breaks up at nine to ten months as juveniles disperse.⁵¹

For a caller, that puts the best of the year in January and February — pairs are territorial, response is aggressive, and it is also when the trapping season is open. The dispersal window in the autumn is the second-best, and it overlaps the deer seasons that produce most of the incidental harvest.

When are coyotes most active in South Carolina?

Coyotes are typically most active beginning at twilight and continuing throughout the night. In some areas they may be seen during the day, especially when left undisturbed.[^sc-behaviour]

That nocturnal pattern is exactly why the registered-property night hunting rule is worth the paperwork. For the full breakdown of season, weather and moon phase, see when to hunt coyotes.

Are there black coyotes in South Carolina?

Yes, and they are genuinely more common in the Southeast than anywhere else in the country. SCDNR records the range: the coat “is generally a grizzled, grayish-brown but varies greatly from light tan or reddish-tan to almost black.”⁵² SCDNR’s coyote page puts it more directly still — nearly all-black animals are not uncommon in South Carolina.⁵³

A black coyote is still a coyote, still a furbearer, and still legal to take on the same terms as any other. South Carolina has no wolves and no protected wild canid it could be confused with, so unlike the five eastern counties in North Carolina, an unusual-looking canid here is not a legal problem.

What’s changing in South Carolina

• July 2023 — the tagged-coyote reward became cash. The Coyote Harvest Incentive Program originally paid a free lifetime hunting license; the budget proviso was modified to a $3,000 cash reward per tagged coyote, capped at two per hunter per fiscal year.¹¹ The program has been renewed every year since 2016 and rests on an annual proviso, so the figure is worth re-checking each budget year.²⁶
• 26 May 2023 — Sunday hunting opened on part of the public estate. WMA regulations took effect allowing Sunday hunting on a named set of WMAs and national forests during a specified window, ending South Carolina’s blanket prohibition on Sunday hunting on public land. The baseline rule remains “no Sunday hunting on any WMA lands unless otherwise specified,”¹⁶ so check the individual tract.
• May 2017 — coyotes got their own night hunting statute. 2017 Act No. 88 pulled feral hogs, coyotes and armadillos out of §50-11-710, where they had sat with raccoons and foxes since 2010, and gave them §50-11-715 with the registered-property scheme, the 300-yard rule and the five-year conviction bar.¹⁹ The old artificial-light section, §50-11-708, was repealed at the same time — which is why citations to it still circulating are dead.⁵⁴

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 South Carolina

South Carolina is a permissive coyote state with one piece of administration standing between you and the best of it.

Four things to get right:

Register the property before the season, not the night of. Night hunting is where South Carolina is genuinely excellent — light, night vision, thermal, bait and e-calls, all expressly permitted — and none of it is lawful on unregistered ground. The landowner registers, it lapses annually, and last year’s report has to be in before this year’s registration is accepted.

Pace out 300 yards from every residence within earshot. It is the rule most likely to turn a good night into a citation, and it does not care whether you knew the house was there.

Leave the snares at home. Cable restraints are water sets only in South Carolina, and every coyote set is a land set. A 5¾-inch foothold is the tool.

Know what a tag looks like. There are roughly seventy $3,000 coyotes still walking around South Carolina, the tags carry their own contact details, and coyotes tagged in any year still count.

Is it legal to own a coyote as a pet in South Carolina?

No, and South Carolina closes the door twice. The statute:

It is unlawful to buy, sell, transfer, possess, or release a live coyote, coyote-hybrid, or fox within the State except as permitted by the department pursuant to this title.⁵⁵

And the permit route that might look like a way in is closed by policy: “any requests for permits to import furbearing animals as pets will routinely be denied.”⁵⁶

The only lawful possession of a live coyote in South Carolina is by a licensed trapper during the season and for 30 days after, or by a permitted fox and coyote hunting enclosure.⁴³ There is no route by which a private individual keeps one.

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