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

Coyote classification & license in New Jersey

What is the classification of coyotes in New Jersey?

A furbearer, hunted under the small game rules. The coyote’s seasons sit in the digest’s small game chapter alongside fox, and its trapping rules in the furbearer chapter.¹²

But New Jersey does its scoping through permits, not categories. Three separate pieces of paper decide what you may do to a coyote here:

And one class of license is shut out of the animal entirely. Apprentice license holders “may not hunt for coyote or fox,” and are not eligible for a Rifle Permit or a Coyote Permit.³

Are coyotes protected in New Jersey?

No bag limit, but a real closed season.

No daily or seasonal bag limit.⁴

The season runs from early October to 15 March and then closes. From 16 March to the opening of the bow season, coyote hunting in New Jersey is shut — which is not true of any neighbouring state except Massachusetts.

And every coyote must be reported the same day:

Harvest Reporting of Coyote is REQUIRED by 8 p.m. on the day of harvest. Reporting of Gray Fox is also requested.⁴

Is a hunting license required to hunt coyotes in New Jersey?

Yes — and for the good half of the season you need two more documents on top.

2026 fees:

The Coyote & Fox Permit is age 10 and over and is not available for purchase until mid-December, when the new license year opens.⁵

The Rifle Permit is the one people forget. It is required of “all persons in possession of a rifle (modern or muzzleloading rifle including a smoothbore muzzleloader firing a single projectile) while hunting or trapping,” and it is not required for an air gun.³ Rifle Permits run 1 July to 30 June, and an initial applicant must be at least 10 and have completed the Firearms hunter education course or hold an equivalent from another state.³

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, unless you have held the right license before:

New Jersey requires that everyone, age 10 and above, applying to hunt with a firearm or bow must show a previous resident license of the appropriate type from this or any state, or a course completion card from the appropriate hunter education course to obtain a regular license.³

Trappers aged 12 and above face the same requirement in trapper form.³

The course has an online component. All hunter education students must first complete the HunterCourse.com online program before the in-person element.³

The apprentice license is the exemption — and it does not help you here. An apprentice may hunt without hunter education, but “Apprentice hunters may not hunt for coyote or fox,” and apprentices cannot hold a Rifle Permit or a Coyote Permit.³ Individuals are limited to two apprentice licenses per type per lifetime.³

Can a non-resident hunt coyotes in New Jersey?

Yes. The non-resident Firearm license is $135.50, as is the non-resident Bow & Arrow license. A non-resident 2-day small game firearm license at $36.50 exists and is the cheap route for a short trip.⁵

The $2 Coyote & Fox Permit is the same price for a non-resident as a resident.⁵

Two things to arrange before you drive. The permit is not on sale until mid-December, so a January night hunt cannot be organized the week before Christmas. And New Jersey’s 450-foot safety zone around any building — occupied or not — makes written landowner permission the practical key to most of the state. See private property.

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 & limits in New Jersey

What is the season for coyote hunting in New Jersey?

Four overlapping regimes. This table is the page.

The 2025–26 dates were 4 October – 7 November for the bow-only period and 8 November – 15 March for the general season, with an 8 a.m. start on the November opener.¹ Check the current digest for the exact dates each year; the structure does not change.

Read the bait and dog rows again. They are the reverse of what you would expect. The cheap general season gives you hounds and a bait pile; the permit season takes both away and gives you a rifle and the dark instead.

What is the bag limit for coyotes in New Jersey?

No daily or seasonal limit, in either the regular or the permit season.¹⁶

What are the legal hunting hours for coyotes in New Jersey?

Half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset in the regular season.¹

Under the Special Permit from 1 January to 15 March, twenty-four hours — the daytime provisions run ½ before sunrise to ½ after sunset and the night provisions run ½ after sunset to ½ before sunrise, which between them cover the clock.⁶⁷

The night half is a different hunt with different rules — see night hunting.

Can you hunt coyotes on Sunday?

No, and New Jersey’s Sunday closure is close to airtight for a coyote hunter.

No person may hunt with firearms or carry a gun in the woods or fields or on the waters on Sunday except on semi-wild and commercial shooting preserve lands for the purpose of shooting stocked game or when using a .22 rifle for dispatching trapped animals.⁸

That is a carry offence, not just a hunting offence — the same construction as Massachusetts.

And the archery exception does not reach the coyote:

Sunday bowhunting for deer is legal only on state wildlife management areas and private property.⁸

Sunday bowhunting is granted for deer. A coyote bowhunter is outside it.

Sunday hunting is also prohibited in NJ State Parks and Forests and on national wildlife refuges.⁸

The one Sunday exception in the small game rules is for raccoon and opossum — 12:01 a.m. to one hour before sunrise during their season.⁸ The coyote gets nothing.

Plan a New Jersey trip as six days. A Saturday night sit under the permit is legal right up to ½ hour before sunrise on Sunday morning — but a gun in the woods after that is the offence, so know your times.

Can you hunt coyotes during deer or big game season?

Yes, with two interruptions.

Dogs come off during the firearm deer week. The 2025–26 digest allowed dogs from 8 November to 15 March “except Dec. 8–13 & 17, 2025” — the six-day firearm deer season and the following permit day.¹ Check the equivalent dates each year.

Hunter orange is required whenever you are shotgun hunting for coyote in the regular season, and a solid hunter orange hat — no camouflage, no logos — is required as part of the 200 square inch requirement when hunting small game with a firearm on any pheasant or quail stocked WMA.¹

The general rule is broader than that, and it is written as a choice:

Firearm hunters must wear a cap made of solid daylight fluorescent orange or an outer garment containing at least 200 square inches of fluorescent orange material visible from all sides at all times while engaged in hunting. A camo-orange hat alone is not adequate. This applies to all persons while hunting with a firearm for deer, bear, rabbit, hare, squirrel, coyote, fox, railbirds and game birds including while in a tree stand.⁹

Two things to take from it. A solid orange cap on its own satisfies the requirement — you do not need both — but a camouflage-pattern orange hat satisfies neither. And the words “including while in a tree stand” close the gap most hunters assume exists: elevation is not an exemption in New Jersey the way it is in Connecticut.

Under the Special Permit at night, hunter orange is optional.⁷

Can I shoot a coyote that walks past while I am deer or turkey hunting?

Yes to both, and the two answers are governed by opposite kinds of condition — one about your intent, one about your setup.

Turkey hunters may take a coyote during any turkey season — but not a fox, and only if you have done nothing to bring it in:¹⁰

the hunter may not: Have any type of coyote call in their possession. Have any coyote decoys. Take any action intended to attract a coyote.

Read the first one. It is not “may not use a call” — it is may not have one in your possession. A diaphragm in your vest that you never touched is enough to put you outside the exemption. If you turkey hunt and coyote hunt with the same vest, empty it.

Deer hunters may take a coyote or fox during any firearm deer season with weapons and ammunition normally restricted to deer — which is the more generous half of this, because it lets a deer rifle or slug gun be used on a coyote. Two things switch it off:¹⁰

• You are hunting from a tree stand or other structure within 300 feet of a baited area — and this one also applies to bowhunters.
• You have taken the season bag limit of deer.

The reporting duty does not care which of the three you were doing. “Regardless of whether you are hunting canines, deer or turkey — all coyote harvests must be reported by 8 p.m. on the day of harvest.”¹⁰ So an incidental coyote taken from a deer stand at first light is on the same clock as a called one. Report through the Automated Harvest Report System — by phone on (855) 448-6865, or online — and be ready with the same location details a deer harvest needs: DMZ, county and township.¹⁰

Night hunting in New Jersey

Can you hunt coyotes at night in New Jersey?

Yes, from 1 January to 15 March, on the $2 Special Permit — and the regulation prescribes how.

Jan. 1–Mar. 15 (Night). Hunting with aid of light allowed. ½ hr. after sunset–½ hr. before sunrise. Shotgun Only 10–12 ga. using shot size #4 fine to ‘T’ ONLY. Hunter Orange: Optional under Special Permit Provisions. Method: On the ground, elevated, or in man-made structure. Manner: Standing and calling only. Predator call: Must possess manual or electronic call. Dogs: Prohibited. Decoys: Allowed (No live decoys). Bait: Use Prohibited while hunting with a Special Permit.⁶⁷

Four provisions there are unusual enough to spell out.

“Standing and calling only” regulates the manner of the hunt. Stalking is lawful in the daytime general season — the digest lists “running with hounds, stalking or stand and call” as permitted manners there.¹ At night under the permit, only the last of those three survives. You set up, you call, you shoot from where you are.

You must possess a call. Manual or electronic, but it must be on you. This is the second of only two such requirements in the country; Rhode Island has the other.

No rifle after dark. The permit unlocks rifles in the daytime portion of the permit season. The night portion is shotgun only.

Bait is prohibited under the permit, day or night. Not “no hunting over bait” — use prohibited while hunting with a Special Permit. If you have been baiting a spot through the general season, that spot is off the table from the day you buy the permit and hunt it under permit provisions.

Can you use artificial lights for coyote hunting in New Jersey?

Yes at night under the Special Permit — and this makes New Jersey the most light-permissive state in the Northeast.

Hunting with aid of light allowed.⁷

That sits inside the 1 January – 15 March night block, so it is a permit privilege confined to those ten and a half weeks.

Never from a vehicle, though. New Jersey prohibits

Hunting or shooting with the aid of a light attached to or carried in a vehicle.¹¹

That is an absolute prohibition and it is not lifted by the permit. The light has to be on you or on the gun, not on the truck.

Can you use night vision in New Jersey?

Not addressed — the permit provisions speak to the light and say nothing about optics.

The night block of the coyote regulation grants “hunting with aid of light” and then specifies the shotgun, the shot size, the manner and the call. It does not mention night vision, thermal or infrared, and neither does the general hunting regulation.⁷¹²

So there is no prohibition to point at. New Jersey chose to regulate the night hunt through the weapon, the manner and the permit rather than through the optic — which is a coherent approach and leaves the optic question genuinely open.

Two cautions before you rely on that. The vehicle-light prohibition reaches “a light attached to or carried in a vehicle” regardless of wavelength, so an infrared illuminator on a truck is inside it.¹¹ And “standing and calling only” governs however you are seeing.

Ring NJ Fish & Wildlife on 609-292-2965 before hunting the permit season with any device New Jersey has not addressed.

Can you use thermal in New Jersey?

Same position: nothing prohibits it and nothing permits it by name. The word thermal does not appear in the coyote and fox provisions or in the general hunting regulations.⁷¹²

But think about what the New Jersey night hunt actually is before you buy one. Shotgun only, #4 fine to T shot, standing and calling, with a light expressly permitted. That is a forty-yard hunt. A thermal scope on a shotgun throwing buckshot-adjacent loads is a very different proposition from a thermal on a .223, and New Jersey has not given you the .223 after dark.

Where thermal earns its keep here is as a hand-held spotter — confirming what came to the call before you commit the light and the shot.

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

Yes — the tightest night weapon specification of any state that permits night hunting at all.

Shotgun Only 10–12 ga. using shot size #4 fine to ‘T’ ONLY.⁷

Three things are excluded by that sentence and each of them surprises somebody:

No rifle. Not even the rimfire the permit allows by day.

No 16 or 20 gauge. The night specification narrows to 10–12 gauge; the daytime and general seasons run 10–20.

No buckshot and no slugs. “#4 fine to ‘T’” is a range of shot sizes. The permit’s daytime shotgun spec is “BB to #3 buckshot ONLY,” which is a different and overlapping range — read the row you are actually in.

Firearms, ammo & suppressors in New Jersey

Are suppressors allowed for coyote hunting in New Jersey?

No. The digest lists it flatly among the prohibited acts:

[It is unlawful to] Possess or use silencer or noise suppressor on any firearm (NJSA 2C:39-1 g.)¹²

It is a possession offence under New Jersey’s criminal code rather than a hunting rule, and there is no hunting exception.

What firearms are allowed or restricted for coyote hunting in New Jersey?

By season, and the rifle only ever appears in one of the four boxes.

Regular season, bow period: bow of 35 lb pull or peak weight, or crossbow of 75 lb pull weight, using well-sharpened broadheads of minimum 3/4 inch width.¹

Regular season, general period: bow as above, or shotgun 10–20 gauge using shot size up to #4 fine shot.¹

Special Permit, daytime: shotgun 10–20 gauge using BB to #3 buckshot ONLY, or a rifle — and the rifle specification is precise:

ML rifle or single-barrel smoothbore, .44 cal. minimum.

Centerfire rifle (.17–.25 cal.) using hollow or soft point bullets (max. 80 grain).

Rimfire (.17–.22 cal.) using hollow or soft point bullets (max. 50 grain).⁶

Special Permit, night: shotgun only, 10–12 gauge, #4 fine to T.⁷

Two limits on the rifle that are easy to miss.

Rifle use for coyote/fox prohibited on all State Parks, Forests and Recreation Areas.⁶

And a Rifle Permit is required in addition to the Coyote & Fox Permit for any rifle, modern or muzzleloading, including a smoothbore muzzleloader firing a single projectile.³⁶

An air gun is not a rifle for New Jersey’s permit purposes and needs no Rifle Permit.³

Are there any ammunition restrictions?

More than in any other state on this site, and they are the substance of the regulation rather than a footnote to it:

Every row is from the coyote and fox tables.¹⁶⁷

The bullet-weight caps are the unusual part. An 80-grain ceiling on a .22–.25 centerfire rules out most heavy-for-caliber .243 and 6mm loads even before the caliber ceiling does, and the hollow-or-soft-point requirement rules out full metal jacket entirely. New Jersey is legislating against over-penetration in a densely settled state, and it shows.

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

Yes, during the daytime portion of the Special Permit season only, at .17 to .22 caliber with hollow or soft point bullets not exceeding 50 grain.⁶

You need the Coyote & Fox Permit and a Rifle Permit to carry it, and you may not use it on state parks, forests or recreation areas.⁶³

Outside 1 January – 15 March, and at any hour of darkness, a rimfire is not a legal coyote implement in New Jersey.

Is there a magazine capacity limit?

Not stated in the coyote and fox provisions, which regulate gauge, shot size, caliber and bullet weight but not capacity.¹⁶

New Jersey firearms law is a different and much stricter matter. The state regulates magazine capacity and firearm types under Title 2C independently of the hunting code, and a Firearms Purchaser Identification Card is part of the licensing picture — the digest notes that Firearm Apprentice Licenses are limited to those 18 and over precisely because of the FID card rules.³

Resolve any semi-automatic rifle’s status under New Jersey firearms law before you travel with it. That question sits outside a hunting page and is not one to guess at in this state of all states.

Calls, bait & dogs in New Jersey

Are electronic calls allowed for coyote hunting in New Jersey?

Yes — optional in the regular season and compulsory at night.

Predator call: Manual or electronic; use optional.¹

That is the regular season. Under the Special Permit at night:

Predator call: Must possess manual or electronic call.⁷

Combine that with “Manner: Standing and calling only”⁷ and New Jersey has effectively defined the lawful night coyote hunt as a calling hunt — you must be equipped to call and you may not do anything else.

Are decoys allowed for coyote hunting in New Jersey?

Yes in every season — but not live ones:

Decoys: Allowed (No live decoys)¹

The permission is repeated identically in the regular season and the permit season, which is worth noting because almost nothing else is.⁷

Is baiting allowed for coyote hunting in New Jersey?

In the regular season yes, at a distance. Under the Special Permit, no.

Regular season:

Bait: Min. 300’ when in tree stand/ground blind. Baiting not allowed on National Wildlife Refuges.¹

So the bait may be out, but you must be at least 300 feet from it if you are in a stand or a blind. That is a deliberate design — it separates the hunter from the pile rather than banning the pile.

Special Permit season:

Bait: Use Prohibited while hunting with a Special Permit.⁷

This is the single most consequential interaction on the page. A hunter who has been running bait through the general shotgun season and then buys the $2 permit for January cannot hunt that bait under permit provisions — not by day and not by night. If you want the bait, hunt the general season rules; if you want the rifle and the dark, the bait comes out.

On national wildlife refuges, baiting and hunting over bait are prohibited outright, and there is no Sunday hunting on those lands.⁸

Can you use dogs to hunt coyotes in New Jersey?

Yes in the regular season, no under the permit.

Dogs: Allowed Nov. 8, 2025–Mar. 15, 2026 (except Dec. 8–13 & 17, 2025)¹

The excepted days are the firearm deer season and one further permit day. Check the equivalent dates in the current digest each year.

Under the Special Permit:

Dogs: Prohibited.⁶⁷

Day or night. If you run hounds, the permit is not for you.

The general dog rules apply on top: allowing dogs to run at large is prohibited, and dogs may be trained without firearms in daylight at any time except during any open firearm deer season.¹²

The digest names running with hounds as a lawful manner in the regular shotgun season — “Running with hounds, stalking or stand and call”¹ — which makes New Jersey one of the few Northeast states that positively contemplates hound hunting for coyotes.

Property, access & methods in New Jersey

Can you hunt coyotes from a motorized vehicle in New Jersey?

No, and New Jersey’s vehicle rules go further than most.

[It is unlawful to] Possess or discharge a loaded firearm from in, or on, any vehicle, moving or stationary, including ATVs.¹¹

Possession of a loaded firearm in or upon a vehicle is considered proof of pursuing or taking of wildlife.¹¹

Read that second sentence twice. A loaded gun in the truck is not merely an offence in itself; it is evidence that you were hunting, which pulls in every other rule that applies to hunting at that moment.

Also prohibited: transporting an uncased firearm in or on a motor vehicle or ATV; transporting a cocked crossbow in or on a vehicle; discharging a bow from any vehicle, moving or stationary; and hunting or shooting with the aid of a light attached to or carried in a vehicle.¹¹

Drones are prohibited for hunting purposes.¹¹

A permit exists to shoot from a standing vehicle for hunters with permanent disabling conditions.³

Is it legal to shoot coyotes on private property in New Jersey?

Yes with permission — and in New Jersey the permission has to be in writing and in your pocket.

The firearm SAFETY ZONE is the area within 450 feet of a building or school playground, even if not occupied. For bowhunters, the SAFETY ZONE around buildings is 150 feet but remains 450 feet from a school playground.¹³

No firearm hunter or trapper may hunt or carry a loaded firearm within 450 feet of a school playground or any building (even if unoccupied) without written permission, in possession, from the landowner or lessee.¹³

Three things follow.

“Even if unoccupied” is the phrase that matters. A derelict barn or an empty summer cabin creates a 450-foot circle exactly as an occupied house does.

The written permission must be carried. Not obtained — carried, while hunting or trapping.¹³

Bowhunters inside 150 feet must shoot downward. “Persons authorized to bow hunt within 150 feet of a building must hunt from an elevated position to shoot down toward the ground.”¹³

Shooting into a safety zone is prohibited regardless of where you are standing.¹³

In a state with New Jersey’s building density, the 450-foot circles are the map. Draw them before you plan a stand.

Can you hunt coyotes on public land in New Jersey?

Yes on wildlife management areas. State parks, forests and recreation areas are a different matter for a rifle hunter:

Rifle use for coyote/fox prohibited on all State Parks, Forests and Recreation Areas.⁶

So the permit’s daytime rifle privilege — the whole reason many people buy it — does not travel onto state park and forest land. On those lands you are back to the shotgun.

Sunday hunting is prohibited in NJ State Parks and Forests,⁸ on top of the statewide Sunday firearm closure.

On pheasant and quail stocked WMAs, a solid hunter orange hat with no camouflage or logos is required as part of the 200 square inch orange requirement when hunting small game with a firearm.¹

On national wildlife refuges, baiting and hunting over bait are prohibited and there is no Sunday hunting.⁸

Is it legal to trap or snare coyotes in New Jersey?

Trapping yes, on a trapping license and trapper education. New Jersey’s trap law is among the most restrictive in the country and rules out the leghold entirely.

New Jersey prohibits the manufacture, sale, possession, import and use of animal traps of the steel-jaw leghold type, and the Division’s trapping rules are built around that prohibition — box and cage traps, enclosed foothold devices meeting the state’s specification, and body-gripping traps within stated limits.²

Trapper education is required for anyone aged 12 and above applying to trap furbearing animals, unless they hold a previous resident trapping license from this or any state.³

A Rifle Permit is required to possess a rifle while trapping, not only while hunting³ — which catches the trapper who carries a .22 to dispatch.

And the Sunday exception exists here and nowhere else: the Sunday firearm prohibition does not apply “when using a .22 rifle for dispatching trapped animals.”⁸ Checking a trapline on a Sunday with a .22 is lawful; hunting with it is not.

Twenty-three wildlife management areas close cable restraints for coyote until the new year:

The following wildlife management areas are closed to all beaver and otter trapping as well as for using cable restraints for coyote, fox, opossum, raccoon and skunk until 6 a.m. on Jan. 1: Assunpink, Berkshire Valley, Bevans (Millville), Black River, Clinton, Colliers Mills, Flatbrook-Roy, Glassboro, Greenwood Forest (incl. Howardsville tract), Heislerville, MacNamara (Tuckahoe), Mad Horse, Manahawkin, Manasquan River, Medford, Nantuxent, Peaslee, Pequest, Port Republic, Stafford Forge, Walpack, Whittingham and Winslow. Cage traps and encapsulating traps may be used on these WMAs beginning at 6 a.m. on Nov. 15.¹⁴

Read the two dates together. On those areas the cage and encapsulating traps open six and a half weeks before the cable restraints do — so the first half of the season on public ground is a box-trap season, which is a poor tool for coyotes. If cable restraints are your method, those WMAs are a January proposition.

Is it legal to poison coyotes in New Jersey?

No. New Jersey publishes no provision permitting the poisoning of wild mammals, and poison appears nowhere among the legal methods of take for coyote or fox in either the regular or the permit season.⁴²

The legal-methods lists in the digest are closed lists — weapon, ammunition, manner and method are each specified — and anything not on them is not authorized.¹

Are there protected areas or additional local restrictions in New Jersey?

Yes, and the safety zone is the biggest of them. The 450-foot firearm zone around every building in the most densely populated state in the union removes more ground than any other single rule on this page.¹³

Statewide: no Sunday firearm hunting;⁸ no rifles for coyote or fox on state parks, forests and recreation areas;⁶ no baiting or Sunday hunting on national wildlife refuges;⁸ and the drone and vehicle prohibitions.¹¹

Municipal ordinances are the layer to check. New Jersey’s 564 municipalities regulate firearm discharge locally and the Division does not collect those rules. Ring the municipal clerk before hunting new ground.

After the shot in New Jersey

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

Yes — and New Jersey’s reporting deadline is the tightest in the Northeast:

Harvest Reporting of Coyote is REQUIRED by 8 p.m. on the day of harvest. Reporting of Gray Fox is also requested.⁴

Not 24 hours, not 48 hours — 8 p.m. the same day. That has a real consequence for the permit season: a coyote shot at 6 a.m. and a coyote shot at 7 p.m. must both be reported by 8 p.m. that evening, and an animal taken in the small hours belongs to the day it was killed.

Note that the requirement is stated identically in the regular and the permit season blocks.⁴

The deadline has a fallback, and the fallback does not release you:

If unable to access the Automated Harvest Reporting System by the designated time, the coyote shall be reported immediately by telephone to the nearest NJDEP Fish & Wildlife Law Enforcement office. You must continue to attempt accessing the Automated Harvest Report System until you report that coyote harvest.¹⁵

So a dead phone or a failed website is not an excuse, and the call to Law Enforcement is not a substitute — it is a holding measure. The AHRS entry is still owed, and the duty runs until you make it. Report by phone on (855) 448-6865 or online, and have the same details a deer harvest needs: DMZ, county and township.¹⁰

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

Pelt sales in New Jersey run through the fur dealer licensing framework in the Division’s trapping rules, which govern who may buy and deal in raw furs.²

A hunter or trapper selling their own lawfully taken pelts to a licensed dealer is the ordinary transaction; dealing in raw furs as a business is what requires the license.

There is no coyote pelt tag or seal in New Jersey, unlike Connecticut and Massachusetts next door. What New Jersey requires instead is the same-day harvest report.⁴

Is there a coyote bounty program in New Jersey?

No. New Jersey has no coyote bounty. The state manages the coyote through a structured season, a permit and mandatory same-day harvest reporting — the reporting requirement gives the Division the harvest data a bounty would otherwise buy.⁴

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

New Jersey has not prohibited predator hunting contests. Neither the coyote and fox provisions nor the general hunting regulations contain any reference to contests, competitions or tournaments.¹¹²

But the practical obstacles here are unusually high, and they are worth setting out because they are the reason New Jersey has not needed a ban:

No Sunday. A weekend contest is a one-day contest.

Same-day reporting by 8 p.m. Every animal is on the record before a weigh-in.

The permit season is standing-and-calling only with no dogs and no bait, and the regular season has no legal night hours at all.

Written landowner permission carried on the person inside every 450-foot building zone.

A contest built to satisfy all of that would look very little like the events that prompted bans elsewhere.

On the out-of-state question, nothing in New Jersey law prevents an animal lawfully taken here from being entered elsewhere — but three of New Jersey’s neighbours have contest bans of their own, and the destination state’s rules govern.

Coyotes in New Jersey

Are there coyotes in New Jersey? How many, and where?

In nearly every municipality in the state, and they have been here longer than most people think:

The first known record of a coyote in New Jersey was near Lambertville, Hunterdon County, in 1939, and coyotes have since been documented in nearly 400 municipalities across all 21 counties — about 94% of the state’s land area.¹⁶

That makes New Jersey’s coyote colonization both earlier and more complete than its reputation suggests. The Division does not publish a headcount, which is consistent with every other state on this site.

Size: adult coyotes in New Jersey range from 20 to 50 pounds, with exceptionally large animals up to about 55 pounds.¹⁶

The wide bottom end of that range is worth noting for a hunter used to New England — a 20-pound New Jersey coyote is a smaller target than the 40-pound Massachusetts average, and the state’s ammunition rules are built for close, frangible work.

Are New Jersey coyotes dangerous to people or pets?

To people, very rarely. To pets and small livestock the risk is the usual one and it is concentrated on the suburban edge, which in New Jersey is most of the state.

The regulatory picture reflects the same judgment. New Jersey gives the coyote a real season, no bag limit, a night permit and a same-day reporting duty — the profile of a species being managed with data rather than suppressed.

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

Pups arrive in April and early May after about nine weeks of gestation, in litters that run from three to nine and average about six.¹⁶

Working back from that, breeding falls in February, which sits squarely inside the Special Permit season — the ten and a half weeks New Jersey opens to rifles and to the night are the ten and a half weeks coyotes are most vocal, most territorial and most responsive to a call.

The season closes on 15 March, before the pups are born. That is not an accident of drafting.

When are coyotes most active in New Jersey?

Dusk to dawn, with the usual daylight movement in spring and summer while pups are being fed — which in New Jersey falls outside the season entirely.

The practical New Jersey pattern is this. From October to December you are hunting the last and first hours of light, with hounds or over bait at 300 feet. From 1 January you can buy the night, and the night is a standing, calling, shotgun hunt with a light, inside forty yards, on ground where every building is the center of a 450-foot circle.

It is a demanding way to hunt coyotes and it produces some of the closest work anywhere in the country.

For the full breakdown of season, weather and moon phase, see when to hunt coyotes.

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 New Jersey

New Jersey is the most rule-dense coyote state on this site, and almost all of the density is in one table. Learn which of the four boxes you are in and the rest follows.

Seven things:

Buy the $2 permit in mid-December. It is not on sale before then, it is valid 1 January to 15 March, and it is the whole reason to hunt New Jersey.

The permit gives you rifles and the night and takes away bait and dogs. Both directions, both seasons.

Night is shotgun only, 10–12 gauge, #4 fine to T. No rifle, no buckshot, no 20 gauge.

You must possess a predator call at night, and you may only stand and call.

Report by 8 p.m. the same day. Every coyote, every season.

Get a Rifle Permit as well if you intend to use one — and know that no rifle is lawful for coyote on state parks, forests or recreation areas.

Carry written landowner permission for anywhere inside 450 feet of any building, occupied or not.

One answer on this page is an honest gap rather than a verdict: whether thermal and night vision are lawful in the permit night season. New Jersey regulates that hunt through the weapon, the manner, the call and the light, and says nothing about optics either way. Ring 609-292-2965 before relying on the silence.

And one dated caution. The season dates and dog-exception days quoted here are the 2025–26 digest’s. The structure has been stable for years, but the calendar moves — check the current digest before the season opens.

Is it legal to own a coyote as a pet in New Jersey?

No. New Jersey regulates the possession of wildlife through the Division’s exotic and non-game species permit framework, and native predators are not species a private individual may keep as a pet. Permits exist for scientific, exhibition, educational and rehabilitation purposes.

The coyote is a game species with a declared season here,¹ and the Division’s importation and possession rules do not provide a route to keeping one.

If you have found an orphaned pup, contact NJ Fish & Wildlife on 609-292-2965 or a licensed wildlife rehabilitator rather than keeping it.

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