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

Big game, and why it matters

What is the classification of coyotes in the Yukon?

Big game — and the Yukon is the only jurisdiction in this entire series, Canadian or American, that says so.

“You can hunt coyotes and wolves with a big game hunting licence.”¹

Everywhere else the coyote is small game, a furbearer, an unprotected animal, a varmint, or in Newfoundland’s case a category of its own. Here it sits with the moose, the caribou and the grizzly.

Stop and think about what that does before reading another line. On every other page on this site, the useful discovery is that a coyote falls outside the category a restriction names — the big game rules on hours, calibre, guides and dogs sail past it. In the Yukon it falls inside, so all of them land on it at once:

• You need a big game licence, not a small game licence
• A non-resident needs an outfitter or a guide — see non-residents
• The big game calibre floor applies, with one carve-out — see firearms
• The big game bow minimum applies: 18 kg (39.7 lb) peak draw
• Letting a dog chase one is harassment of big game, and an offence

Two big game obligations do not follow. Coyote needs no big game seal — “big game seals are not required for coyote, wolf or wolverine” — and unlike the wolf and the wolverine, its pelt needs no furbearer seal either.^{2 1}

Is a hunting licence required, and what does it cost?

A big game hunting licence. The licence year runs 1 April to 31 March and you may hold only one hunting licence in it.³

Fees exclude GST. That $50 harvest fee is charged to non-residents per animal taken, on top of the licence — it is the same structure as the $500 fee on a male grizzly, applied to a coyote.⁴

A visiting American is therefore looking at $150 plus $50 plus a guide. See what a non-resident needs before you budget anything. Licences are sold online through Environment Yukon or at any Department of Environment office.

Season

What is the season for coyote hunting in the Yukon?

1 August to 31 March, with no bag limit — but read the subzone, because the Yukon closes ground rather than shortening dates.^{5 6}

Eight months and no ceiling is generous, and it lines up with the wolf, which shares the same dates but is capped at seven. What is unusual is the shape of the closures: Zone 6 is shut to licensed hunters for every big game species, coyote included, and a scatter of subzones elsewhere are closed outright. There is no partial season and no reduced limit — a subzone is open on the same terms as everywhere else, or it is closed. The department publishes the Game Management Area map data separately from the summary, and you will need it.

Check the subzone, not the zone. Yukon numbers its Game Management Subzones individually and the closed ones are listed by number, not by name or by map region.

Non-residents

Can a non-resident hunt coyotes in the Yukon?

Not alone, and not cheaply — because the coyote is big game. This is the strictest non-resident coyote rule anywhere in this series, and it is a straight consequence of the classification:

“Non-residents can only hunt big game in the Yukon with: a registered Yukon outfitter; or a Yukon resident with a special guide licence.”⁷

There is no coyote exemption in that sentence, because the coyote is not an exception to big game — it is big game.

Note what the very next line gives away:

“Non-residents can buy a small game licence and hunt small game and game birds without a guide.”⁷

Snowshoe hare, ptarmigan and grouse, unguided, on a $20 licence. A coyote, guided, on a $150 licence plus a $50 harvest fee. In British Columbia or Newfoundland a visitor may hunt coyotes alone; in the Yukon the same animal is behind the same wall as a Dall sheep.

The special guide route is a lottery, and it is closed to Americans. A special guide licence “lets you guide a Canadian citizen or permanent resident who is not a resident of the Yukon,” and it is issued through a weighted lottery.⁷ So a hunter from Ontario might be taken out by a Yukon friend who draws one. A hunter from Montana cannot use that route at all and must book a registered outfitter.

Your guide must accompany you at all times while hunting, and must file an Outfitter Chief Guide/Hunter Report within 10 days of the end of the month of the hunt — whether or not anything was killed.⁷

The federal side — the firearm declaration at the border, the fee, and what a past conviction does — is on the Canada regulations index.

The calibre floor

What firearms are allowed for coyote hunting in the Yukon?

Here is the inversion that makes this page worth reading. Every other jurisdiction that regulates coyote calibre sets a ceiling — PEI caps you at a .22 rimfire, Newfoundland at .225, Ontario at .275 in its southern counties. The Yukon sets a floor, because it is writing for moose and grizzly — and then carves the coyote out of it:

“It’s against the law to hunt big game with … a rifle calibre less than 6 mm (.24 calibre) — exception: you may use a 5.6 mm (.22 calibre) centrefire rifle for wolves and coyotes.”⁸

So the .223 and the .22-250 are legal on a Yukon coyote as an exception granted, not as a limit imposed — and everything from .243 upward is legal anyway because it clears the floor. It is the one place in Canada where a coyote hunter’s problem is a rifle being too small, and even that has been solved for them.

The rest of the big game firearm rules apply in full:⁸

• No crossbow — it is against the law to hunt with a crossbow anywhere in the Yukon, for anything
• No pistol or revolver
• No shotgun smaller than 20 gauge, and slugs only — shotgun ammunition other than a slug is prohibited
• No muzzleloader under 11.4 mm (.45)
• No non-expanding ammunition such as service ammunition
• No silencing device — a territorial prohibition on top of the federal one
• No set firearm, and nothing in an unsafe condition

Can you bow hunt coyotes here?

Yes, to the big game standard: a peak draw weight of at least 18 kg (39.7 lb), arrows of at least 300 grains and 510 mm (20 in), and a broadhead at least 22 mm (0.87 in) wide with two or more sharp cutting edges.⁹ That 18 kg tier is shared with deer, wolf, wolverine, black bear, sheep and caribou; the heavier 22.5 kg tier is for goat, moose, elk and grizzly.

A crossbow is not an option — see above. What to carry covers the rifle side.

Night, lights and the midnight sun

Can you hunt coyotes at night in the Yukon?

No, and the rule is written for all wildlife rather than for a category, so there is no scoping argument to have:

“It’s against the law to hunt any wildlife between one hour after sunset and one hour before sunrise.”¹⁰

An hour either side, not the half-hour most jurisdictions use — so the Yukon’s legal day is two hours shorter than Québec’s at the same latitude-independent margin. The summary points hunters at the National Research Council’s sunrise and sunset tables for the times, which at these latitudes move fast enough to be worth checking weekly.

And when the sun does not set?

This is the rule no other page on this site has, and it exists because of where the Yukon is:

“Where the sun does not rise or set daily, it’s against the law to hunt wildlife when the centre of the sun is more than 6° below the horizon. This is known as astronomical twilight, which means it is dark enough to see the stars.”¹⁰

Above the Arctic Circle in midsummer the sun never sets, so “one hour after sunset” has nothing to bite on. The Yukon replaces the clock with the sun’s actual position: you may hunt through the small hours of a June night, and you stop when it gets dark enough to see stars. It is the only genuinely astronomical hunting-hours rule in this series — and in a coyote season that runs to 31 March, it matters at the other end of the year too, when the days are short rather than endless.

Can you use artificial lights, night vision or thermal?

The 2026–27 summary contains no light provision at all — no spotlight rule, no reflecting-equipment rule, and no mention of night vision, thermal or infrared anywhere in its 78 pages.

That is not a permission. There is no lawful night hunt for any wildlife in the Yukon, so a light has nothing lawful to serve, and a provision of that kind would sit in the Wildlife Act rather than in the summary. Do not read the silence as clearance. If you need a definitive answer — for a legal-hours hunt in poor light, say — ring Environment Yukon on 867-667-5652 before you carry one. Night hunting is not part of the Yukon picture.

Calls, bait and dogs

Are electronic calls allowed for coyote hunting in the Yukon?

Unlisted, and this page will not guess. The summary’s prohibited-methods pages cover bait, poison, drones, set firearms, harassment, vehicles and aircraft — and say nothing about recorded, electronic or amplified calls in either direction.

That is a different answer from the ten provinces before it. Each of those had a call prohibition somewhere that either reached the coyote or scoped past it, or — in the Maritimes — a legislative scheme thorough enough that the absence was itself informative. The Yukon summary is a 78-page condensation of a larger Act, so silence here carries less weight, and the honest position is that the question is unanswered rather than answered yes.

Ring Environment Yukon on 867-667-5652 before you rely on it. The best coyote call covers what to run where the answer is settled.

Is baiting allowed?

Yes — and it is granted by name, which almost nowhere else does.

“It’s against the law to … use bait to hunt small game, or big game other than wolves or coyotes.”¹¹

Read the shape of that. Bait is banned for small game and for big game generally, and the coyote and the wolf are lifted out of the ban. Most jurisdictions in this series simply never legislate bait for coyote, which leaves the question open; the Yukon addresses it and permits it.

Poison remains prohibited — possessing or using poison or drugs to kill, injure, disable or capture wildlife is an offence.¹¹

Can you use dogs to hunt coyotes in the Yukon?

No — and again it is the big game classification doing the work. The offence is framed as harassment:

“Harassing wildlife is against the law … That includes … allowing your dog to chase or molest big game animals, furbearing animals or specially protected wildlife.”¹²

A Yukon coyote is a big game animal, so a dog chasing one is inside that sentence. The only exception is a ministerial permit issued to a landowner protecting private property.¹²

That is the same destination New Brunswick reaches, by a completely different route: New Brunswick catches the coyote with the words “fur bearing animal”, the Yukon with “big game animals”. Two jurisdictions, two categories, one answer.

What about drones?

Banned, and more broadly than most:

“Use an unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) for the purpose of hunting or possess a drone while hunting. This applies to hunting big game and small game.”¹³

Possession while hunting is the offence, not merely use. Leave it at camp.

After the shot

Do you have to report a coyote?

Yes, and this is the obligation most likely to be missed, because no seal or tag reminds you of it.

“You must report your coyote harvest to the Department of Environment: no later than 15 days after the end of the month in which you killed it; or upon the request of a conservation officer.”¹

There is no pelt sealing for coyote and no big game seal, so nothing physical forces you through a Department office — the report is on you. Wolf and wolverine hunters report when they seal the pelt; coyote hunters have to remember.

Can you waste the pelt?

No. “It’s against the law to waste the hide or pelt of a grizzly bear, coyote, wolverine or wolf,” and the coyote section repeats it: “It’s against the law to waste the pelts of these animals.”^{14 1}

Four animals are named in that list and the coyote is one of them. Leaving one where it fell is an offence in the Yukon in a way it is not in most of the country.

Anything else that reaches a coyote hunter?

The coyote is “dangerous wildlife” for the purposes of the attractant rules — the same category as bears, wolves and cougars — so feeding one, or leaving food, garbage or other attractants where one may get at them, is an offence. A conservation officer may inspect a building other than a dwelling without a warrant on reasonable grounds, and may issue a Dangerous Wildlife Protection Order requiring an attractant to be cleaned up, contained or removed.¹⁵

Coyotes in the Yukon

Are there coyotes in the Yukon?

Yes, across the settled south and centre of the territory, and they are a comparatively recent arrival at this latitude — the coyote’s push into the northwest followed the human corridors, and the Yukon is the far edge of that expansion rather than its heartland.

The territory publishes no population estimate for the coyote, and none of the figures that circulate come from Environment Yukon. What the department publishes instead is a season with no bag limit and a mandatory harvest report on every animal, which is a fair description of how it is managing the species: it is not metering the harvest, it is counting it.

That combination — no limit, no seal, but a report due within 15 days of the end of the month — is the tell. The Yukon wants the data more than it wants the restraint.

What does the territory say about them?

Two things, and both are regulatory rather than biological. The coyote is big game, which is a statement about how the territory expects it to be hunted — deliberately, on a licence, by someone guided if they are from away. And it is dangerous wildlife for attractant purposes, which is a statement about what happens when one learns that a settlement is a food source.¹⁵

For a hunter, the practical consequences of the first are all over this page. The practical consequence of the second is the ordinary advice: do not feed them, and do not leave anything out that teaches them to come closer. When to hunt covers the timing side, and in a territory where the coyote season runs from August through the dark of March, timing is most of the problem.