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

Coyote classification & license in Massachusetts

What is the classification of coyotes in Massachusetts?

A furbearer, and MassWildlife says so in terms:

Eastern coyotes are an important and valuable natural resource in Massachusetts. They are classified as a furbearer species, for which a management program and regulated hunting and trapping seasons have been established.¹

But the classification that actually governs this page is a negative one. Massachusetts’s general prohibition on hunting anything without a declared season carries a list of exceptions, and reading who is not on it explains the whole regulatory structure:

Except as provided in rules and regulations made under authority of this section, and except as otherwise provided in this chapter, a person shall not fish, hunt or trap or have in his possession any fish, bird, reptile, amphibian, mammal or carcass or part thereof, but this section shall not be construed to prohibit the hunting, taking or possession of any English sparrow, crow, jay, starling, chipmunk, fox, flying squirrel, red squirrel, porcupine, skunk, weasel, wildcat or woodchuck whenever such hunting, taking or possession is otherwise lawful.²

Fox is on that list. Bobcat is on that list. Coyote is not. So where a Massachusetts fox hunter operates in the space the statute leaves open, a coyote hunter operates inside a season the director has declared — with dates, hours, a seal and a report.

That single omission is why this page is longer than the New Hampshire one.

Are coyotes protected in Massachusetts?

Not protected, but seasonal. There is no bag limit,³ and the season runs a little under five months. Outside it, coyote hunting is closed statewide.

The two ways round a closed season are both narrow: the landowner damage provision in § 37, covered under private property, and a problem animal control permit.

Is a hunting license required to hunt coyotes in Massachusetts?

Yes. MassWildlife states the requirement by residency:

Massachusetts residents: Hunting or sporting license

Non-residents: Small game or big game license³

2026 fees:

A $5.00 Wildlands Conservation Stamp is added to the first resident license bought each year and to every non-resident license.⁴

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 held a license before 1 January 2007. The statute is unusually direct:

It shall be unlawful for any resident or non-resident to hunt for any bird or mammal in the commonwealth unless such person has successfully completed a hunter education course as prescribed by this section, or unless such person has held a license so to hunt, before January 1, 2007.⁵

The course is a minimum of twelve hours, run by the Division of Law Enforcement, and a certificate from another state or province that the director approves is accepted in its place.⁵

Can a non-resident hunt coyotes in Massachusetts?

Yes, and the small game license is the right one. At $78.00 it covers coyote; the $112.00 big game license adds deer and bear you probably did not come for.⁴³

Two things a visiting hunter should plan around rather than discover:

Sunday is closed and it is not a technicality — see Sunday hunting. A Friday-to-Sunday trip is a Friday-to-Saturday trip.

Your rifle may be illegal after sunset. Read night hunting before you pack. The state that lets you hunt until midnight will not let you carry a .223 to do it.

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 Massachusetts

What is the season for coyote hunting in Massachusetts?

A dated season, and the framework is fixed in the regulation:

for coyote, beginning on the first Saturday after Columbus Day and ending the following March 8⁶

2026 dates as published: 1 January – 8 March 2026, then 17 October 2026 – 8 March 2027.³

Coyote may be hunted throughout Massachusetts, in every wildlife management zone.⁶³

There is no closed period inside the season other than Sundays — the season runs straight through the shotgun deer season, on different terms. See deer season.

What is the bag limit for coyotes in Massachusetts?

None.³

What are the legal hunting hours for coyotes in Massachusetts?

Half an hour before sunrise to midnight — one of only two species in the Massachusetts rulebook that gets the late clock:

The hunting hours during each calendar day of the open season shall begin at ½ hour before sunrise and, for bobcat shall end at ½ hour after sunset; and, for fox shall end at midnight; and for coyote shall end at midnight; except during the shotgun deer season when the hunting hours shall end at ½ hour after sunset.⁶

Midnight is a hard stop. There is no provision for hunting from midnight to ½ hour before sunrise, so the last four or five hours of darkness are closed. A Massachusetts night hunter works the evening, not the small hours.

Can you hunt coyotes on Sunday?

No — and Massachusetts writes the strictest Sunday law in the country.

Every Sunday shall be a closed season. Except as otherwise provided in sections four, thirty-one and thirty-seven, a person, on Sunday, shall not hunt any bird or mammal or carry on that day on his person a rifle, shotgun or bow and arrow or, unless otherwise permitted by law, a pistol or revolver, in any place where birds or mammals might be found.⁷

Read that twice. It is not only unlawful to hunt on Sunday; it is unlawful to carry a long gun in the woods on a Sunday. That reaches a hunter walking out a stand, scouting with a rifle slung, or driving home the long way with an uncased gun through a place where mammals might be found.

Three things the statute expressly permits: using a firearm on a skeet, trap or target range or for sport target shooting on your own or leased property or on a supervised club range; the taking of mammals by means of traps; and the training and exercising of falcons.⁷

Trapping, then, is the only lawful way to take a coyote in Massachusetts on a Sunday — and given what Massachusetts allows you to trap with, that is a narrow door.

Saturday nights are the trap. The coyote season closes at midnight anyway, but midnight on a Saturday is also the moment Sunday’s closed season begins. Be off the ground and unloaded.

Can you hunt coyotes during deer or big game season?

Yes, but the shotgun deer season changes almost everything about how, and the restrictions come from a statute rather than the coyote rule:

A person shall not, during the open season when deer may be hunted lawfully with a shotgun, hunt a bird or mammal with a rifle, revolver or pistol or by the aid of a dog, or have in his possession or under his control in any wood or field, a rifle, revolver or pistol, or a dog.⁸

The shotgun deer season runs from the first Monday after Thanksgiving to the second Saturday thereafter — roughly the first two weeks of December.⁹ During it:

The coyote rule restates the weapon and call restrictions in its own words:

During the shotgun deer season, coyote may be hunted throughout Massachusetts only by means of a shotgun not larger than ten gauge, including shotguns with a rifled bore, by means of a muzzle-loading firearm, fired from the shoulder, .44 to .775 caliber, or by means of a bow and arrow.

During the shotgun deer season, a person hunting coyote shall not use any electronic call or other noise-making device.⁶

“Or other noise-making device” is broader than an e-caller. A hand call and a mouth call are both out for those two weeks — MassWildlife lists manual calls as prohibited alongside electronic ones.³

Night hunting in Massachusetts

Can you hunt coyotes at night in Massachusetts?

Yes, from sunset to midnight, and Massachusetts is one of the few Northeast states that simply allows it — no permit, no landowner filing, no separate night season. The hours run to midnight as a matter of course.⁶

What Massachusetts does instead is strip the equipment down to almost nothing. No light. No centerfire rifle. No handgun over .38. Read the next three answers together, because they are one rule in three pieces.

Can you use artificial lights for coyote hunting in Massachusetts?

No, and the penalty is forfeiture:

A person shall not hunt any bird or mammal except raccoon or opossum by the aid or use of any artificial light… Any weapon or equipment used in such hunting by any person convicted of a violation of this section shall be confiscated and forfeited to the use of the commonwealth… and any motor vehicle… or other vehicle, boat or canoe so used may be seized and libeled.¹⁰

Two species are exempt and the coyote is not one of them. MassWildlife lists artificial light under “Prohibited” on the coyote page without qualification.³

The forfeiture is the part to take seriously. A conviction under § 68 costs you the rifle and the light, and the truck can be seized and libeled on top. This is the single most expensive mistake available to a coyote hunter in Massachusetts.

Can you use night vision in Massachusetts?

Not addressed in Massachusetts law, which leaves the artificial-light statute doing the work.

The words night vision, thermal and infrared appear nowhere in M.G.L. c. 131 or in 321 CMR 3.00.¹⁰¹¹ Section 68 prohibits hunting “by the aid or use of any artificial light,” and nothing narrows that to visible light.

• A passive image intensifier adds no light to the scene. On the text, it is not an artificial light.
• An infrared illuminator is an artificial light source used as an aid to hunting. Treat it as prohibited.

Understand what the practical answer is here, though. Even with lawful passive optics you are limited to a rifle chambered no larger than .22 long rifle after sunset — so night vision in Massachusetts is a rimfire proposition, not a .223 one. See the next answer but one.

Given the forfeiture provision attached to § 68, ring MassWildlife on 508-389-6300 before hunting with any device that emits, rather than relying on a statute drafted long before the technology existed.

Can you use thermal in Massachusetts?

Thermal emits nothing, so the artificial-light statute does not reach it on the text — and Massachusetts has never said so either way.

A thermal imager is wholly passive. Section 68 prohibits hunting by the aid or use of any artificial light; a device that reads emitted heat and adds no illumination is not one.

But the weapon rule bites regardless of what you are looking through. After ½ hour past sunset your rifle may be chambered for nothing larger than .22 long rifle.¹² A thermal-equipped rimfire is a legitimate Massachusetts set-up. A thermal-equipped .223 is not, and the offence is complete the moment you are in the woods with it, before you have looked at anything.

This is one of two answers on this page that no Massachusetts source resolves. Get it from MassWildlife directly before you rely on it.

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

Yes, and it is the tightest night weapon rule in the United States.

A person shall not use or possess, where birds or mammals may be found, any rifle chambered to take larger than twenty-two long rifle ammunition, or any revolver or pistol chambered to take larger than thirty-eight caliber ammunition, between the hours of one half hour after sunset to one half hour before sunrise of any day throughout the year.¹²

Four things follow, and each of them catches somebody:

It is possession, not use. You do not have to hunt with the rifle, load it, or take it out of the case in a way that matters — having it where birds or mammals may be found after dark is the offence.

It is year-round. Not tied to the coyote season, not tied to any season. A centerfire rifle in the woods at 9 p.m. in July is the same violation.

“Where birds or mammals may be found” is broad. It is not “while hunting.” Any woodland, field or edge qualifies.

Chambering is the test, not what is loaded. A .223 rifle with an empty chamber is still “chambered to take” .223.

So the legal night coyote rifle in Massachusetts is a .22 LR. A .22 WMR or .17 HMR is chambered to take ammunition larger than .22 long rifle and is out. A shotgun is unaffected by § 67 and is the other real option — buckshot and slugs, though, may only be used during the shotgun deer season, which is exactly when night hunting is closed.³ That leaves you shot up to FF for an evening coyote.

The exception is for landowners. Section 67 does not apply to an owner or tenant protecting property under § 37:

Nothing in section sixty-six or sixty-seven shall be construed to prohibit an owner or tenant of land or his authorized agent, as provided in section thirty-seven from protecting his property.¹³

Firearms, ammo & suppressors in Massachusetts

Are suppressors allowed for coyote hunting in Massachusetts?

No. Possession alone is a felony carrying up to five years in state prison.

Any person, other than a federally licensed firearms manufacturer, an authorized agent of the municipal police training committee, or a duly authorized sworn law enforcement officer while acting within the scope of official duties… who sells or keeps for sale, or offers, or gives or disposes of by any means… or uses or possesses any instrument, attachment, weapon or appliance for causing the firing of any gun… to be silent or intended to lessen or muffle the noise of the firing… shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than five years in state prison or for not more than two and one-half years in a jail or house of correction.¹⁴

There is no hunting exception, no permit and no NFA carve-out for private citizens. On conviction the device is confiscated and destroyed by order of the court.¹⁴

Leave it at the state line. This is not a hunting-regulation problem; it is a felony firearms statute, and it is the clearest “no” anywhere on this site.

What firearms are allowed or restricted for coyote hunting in Massachusetts?

By day, anything. After sunset, almost nothing. MassWildlife sets it out cleanly:

Daytime hunting: During the period from ½ hour before sunrise to ½ hour after sunset, there are no restrictions on size or caliber of rifles or handguns.

Nighttime hunting: During the period from ½ hour after sunset to midnight rifles are restricted to those chambered not larger than .22 long rifle and handguns are restricted to those chambered not larger than .38 caliber.³

Shotguns: shot sizes up to and including FF (.230 inches diameter). Slugs, single balls and buckshot only during the shotgun deer season.³

Muzzleloaders: smooth bore, shot up to FF; rifled bore, no caliber restriction.³

Archery: legal with no minimum pull for coyote — the 40-pound minimum and the 7/8-inch broadhead standard are written for deer, bear and wild turkey only.¹⁵ Poisoned arrows, explosive tips and bows drawn or held by mechanical means are prohibited; hand-held, hand-operated releases are permitted.¹⁵

Crossbows are prohibited for everyone except a person permanently disabled such that they cannot operate a conventional bow, certified by a physician and permitted by the director — a permit valid for life.¹⁵¹⁶

Three absolute bans apply to all hunting: full automatic firearms, machine guns and submachine guns; and tracer or incendiary ammunition.¹⁶

Are there any ammunition restrictions?

Tracer and incendiary ammunition are prohibited for hunting and for outdoor target shooting, except on a skeet, trap or target range.¹⁶

Beyond that the restriction is on chambering rather than load, and it applies only after dark — see night weapons. By day there is no caliber floor or ceiling for coyote.³

Shotgun shot is capped at FF, .230 inches; slugs, single balls and buckshot are confined to the shotgun deer season.³

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

Yes — and after dark it is the only rifle you may carry.

Section 67’s ceiling is “chambered to take larger than twenty-two long rifle ammunition.”¹² That admits .22 LR and the cartridges below it, and excludes .22 WMR and .17 HMR, both of which are larger cartridges than .22 long rifle.

By day, a rimfire is a choice rather than a requirement — there are no caliber restrictions between sunrise and sunset.³

Shoot the rimfire like a rimfire. Inside 75 yards with a good bullet it is adequate on a 40-pound eastern coyote. It is not a 200-yard field rifle, and Massachusetts hands it to you at exactly the time of day when your ranging is worst.

Is there a magazine capacity limit?

Not in the hunting law. Neither M.G.L. c. 131 nor 321 CMR 3.00 caps magazine capacity for hunting any mammal, and the three-shell plug rule is written for migratory game birds only.¹⁷

Massachusetts firearms law is a separate matter and a serious one — the Commonwealth restricts large capacity feeding devices and regulates which firearms may be sold or possessed at all, independently of anything in the hunting code. If you are traveling with an AR-pattern rifle, resolve its status under Massachusetts firearms law before you cross the line; that question is outside the scope of a hunting page and is not one to guess at.

For the coyote hunter the binding number is not a magazine at all. It is § 67’s chambering ceiling after sunset.

Calls, bait & dogs in Massachusetts

Are electronic calls allowed for coyote hunting in Massachusetts?

Yes, except during the shotgun deer season. MassWildlife lists both electronic and manual calls as legal methods, each with the same parenthetical: “(Prohibited during the shotgun deer season).”³

The regulation is the authority, and it is worded more broadly than “electronic”:

During the shotgun deer season, a person hunting coyote shall not use any electronic call or other noise-making device. Nothing in 321 CMR 3.02(3)(d)5. shall be construed to prohibit the use of deer antlers or replicas thereof or grunt tubes by persons lawfully hunting deer, or the use of hand or mouth operated waterfowl callers by persons lawfully hunting waterfowl.⁶

Note how the savings clause works: rattling antlers and grunt tubes are protected for deer hunters, and waterfowl callers for waterfowl hunters. Neither protects a coyote hunter, which is why the hand call goes in the truck for those two weeks.

Are decoys allowed for coyote hunting in Massachusetts?

Yes. MassWildlife lists decoys among the legal methods for coyote with no seasonal exception attached.³

Is baiting allowed for coyote hunting in Massachusetts?

Yes. Bait appears on MassWildlife’s list of legal methods for coyote, with no seasonal restriction.³

The baiting prohibition in Massachusetts is written for bear, and it stops at bear:

It shall be unlawful to hunt bear by the aid of baiting or knowingly to hunt bear in a baited area.¹⁸

That is a classic scoping result — the statute names one species, so it reaches one species. Do not read across from it.

Two practical cautions. Baiting near a deer stand in November puts you in the middle of somebody else’s season, and § 44 makes it an offence to deposit garbage or trash on property while hunting. Bait responsibly and clear up.

Can you use dogs to hunt coyotes in Massachusetts?

Yes, outside the shotgun deer season. MassWildlife lists dogs as a legal method for coyote with the shotgun-deer-season exception.³

The dog prohibition during that season is again a possession offence, not a use offence: you may not “have in [your] possession or under [your] control in any wood or field… a dog.”⁸

Massachusetts’s dog ban is written for two other species. Section 21A makes it unlawful “to pursue or hunt bear or bobcat with the aid of a dog” — and names neither fox nor coyote.¹⁸ The coyote regulation separately bars dogs for bobcat only.⁶

Penalties under § 21A are severe where it does apply — $300 to $1,000 or twelve months, and a second conviction bars you from any hunting or dog training license for life¹⁸ — which is worth knowing if you are running hounds in bobcat country and a coyote crosses.

Property, access & methods in Massachusetts

Can you hunt coyotes from a motorized vehicle in Massachusetts?

No.

Except as otherwise provided by law, a person shall not hunt any bird or mammal by the aid or use of any motor vehicle, including a snowmobile, helicopter or other aircraft.¹⁹

And you may not carry a loaded long gun in the vehicle either, except on land you own or occupy:

A person… shall not, except upon land owned or occupied by him, have in his possession or under his control in or on any motor vehicle or aircraft a loaded shotgun or rifle.²⁰

A “loaded” shotgun or rifle in Massachusetts means one “having a shell or cartridge in either the magazine or chamber.”²¹ A round in the magazine counts.

Paraplegic license holders may use a vehicle as an aid to hunting, provided the rifle or shotgun is not loaded while the vehicle is in motion.¹⁹

Is it legal to shoot coyotes on private property in Massachusetts?

With permission, yes — and the landowner’s own position is considerably stronger.

Section 37 lets an owner or tenant, or an authorized family member or employee, deal with a damaging animal outside any season:

[An owner or tenant may] hunt or take by other means, except by poison or snare, any mammal which he finds damaging his property except grass growing on uncultivated land.²²

That comes with a reporting duty: for mammals other than the named game species, “a report on or before January thirty-first of each year, stating the number and kinds of birds or mammals taken.”²²

And § 78 switches off the night caliber ceiling for a landowner acting under § 37.¹³

Two hard distance rules apply everywhere:

A person shall not discharge any firearm or release any arrow upon or across any state or hard surfaced highway, or within one hundred and fifty feet of any such highway, or possess a loaded firearm or hunt by any means on the land of another within five hundred feet of any dwelling in use, except as authorized by the owner or occupant thereof.²³

The 500-foot dwelling rule is a possession rule as well as a hunting rule, and in Massachusetts’s settlement pattern it removes a great deal of otherwise huntable ground. Map it before you plan a stand.

Hunting on posted private land without permission is separately prohibited.²⁴

Can you hunt coyotes on public land in Massachusetts?

Yes on wildlife management areas and state forests; not by default on parks and municipal land. Section 59 starts from a prohibition:

A person shall not hunt… any bird or mammal within the boundaries of any reservation, park or common, or any land owned or leased by the commonwealth or any political subdivision thereof, or any land held in trust for public use; except that the authorities or persons having the control and charge of such [lands] may, with such limitations as they deem advisable, permit the hunting… during the applicable open season.²⁵

This section shall not apply to state forests… or to state parks and reservations under the control of the division of forests and parks.²⁵

So: state forests and DCR parks and reservations sit outside the prohibition, WMAs are expressly open to hunting under 321 CMR 3.01(1), and everything else — town conservation land, reservations, commons — depends on what the controlling authority has allowed. Check locally; do not assume.

On WMAs specifically: no target practice or sighting-in without written permission, no camping or fires without permission, motor vehicles only on designated roads, and a hunter orange cap is required on any WMA stocked with pheasant or quail during those seasons.²⁶

Is it legal to trap or snare coyotes in Massachusetts?

Trapping yes, in a box or cage trap. Everything else is prohibited — this is the strictest trapping law in the country.

The 1996 Wildlife Protection Act sits in § 80A:

Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, a person shall not use, set, place, maintain, manufacture or possess any trap for the purpose of capturing furbearing mammals, except for common type mouse and rat traps, nets, and box or cage type traps… Other than nets and common type mouse or rat traps, traps designed to capture and hold a furbearing mammal by gripping the mammal’s body, or body part are prohibited, including steel jaw leghold traps, padded leghold traps, and snares.²⁷

The penalties are per trap and they escalate to a lifetime ban:

Whoever violates any provisions of this section… shall be punished by a fine of not less than $300 nor more than $1,000, or by imprisonment for not more than six months, or by both… for each trap possessed, used, set, placed, maintained, or manufactured. Each day of violation shall constitute a separate offense. A person… convicted of… a second violation… shall be barred forever from obtaining a trapping license and a problem animal control permit.²⁷

The exceptions run to public health threats, and they are drafted almost entirely around beaver and muskrat flooding rather than predators.²⁷

As a practical matter, box-trapping a coyote is very hard. The Massachusetts trapping season and the general trap prohibition in § 79 apply on top,²⁸ and traps must be registered and identified under § 80. Resident trapping license $40.00; non-resident trapping permit $215.00.²⁹

Is it legal to poison coyotes in Massachusetts?

No.

A person shall not place poison in any form whatsoever for the purpose of killing any mammal or bird except pursuant to a permit issued under the provisions of this section.³⁰

The carve-out is for rats, woodchucks “or other pests of like nature” in an orchard or near a dwelling or barn — not for predators.³⁰

And the statute reverses the burden of proof:

Possession of the raw fur of any mammal… killed by poison, except rats, mice, woodchucks or other pests of like nature, shall be prima facie evidence that the person having such possession has violated this section.³⁰

Section 37’s landowner damage provision also expressly excludes poison.²²

One more method rule worth knowing. You may not take a mammal from a den:

[A] person shall not remove or attempt to remove any mammal from any hole in a tree or in the ground, stonewall, or from within or under any ledge, stone or log; provided, that, anyone authorized by the owner of lands may so remove a chipmunk, fox, flying squirrel, red squirrel, porcupine, skunk, weasel, wildcat or woodchuck.³¹

The same list, and the coyote is again absent from it. Denning a coyote is unlawful in Massachusetts even with the landowner’s blessing.

Are there protected areas or additional local restrictions in Massachusetts?

Yes, and in Massachusetts the local layer matters more than in most states. Municipal firearm discharge by-laws are common and are not collected anywhere by MassWildlife — check with the town clerk or police department for any town you intend to hunt.

Statewide, the constraints that will actually reach you are the 500-foot dwelling rule and the 150-foot highway rule,²³ the § 59 public land regime,²⁵ and on wildlife management areas the rules in 321 CMR 3.01(1).²⁶

Wildlife sanctuaries and nature preserves are closed to hunting under §§ 7 to 10 and 10A to 10D.²⁵

After the shot in Massachusetts

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

Yes, and Massachusetts is unusual here: every coyote must be sealed, and it must be done within 48 hours.

all fox, coyote, and bobcat taken or salvaged shall be brought to a designated representative of the Division and sealed with an official seal by said representative, or the person who took or salvaged the fox, coyote or bobcat shall access the Online system to report the take or salvage. The person shall receive an Online system confirmation number, which shall be the official seal…

The official seal shall remain attached to the pelt or animal until the pelt is dressed or tanned, or prepared for mounting by a taxidermist, or the animal is otherwise disposed of. Coyote and fox shall be sealed no later than 48 hours after the animal is killed.⁶

MassWildlife’s version of the same requirement:

You must report your coyote within 48 hours of harvest. Report at an official check station or online. If you report your harvest online, write the confirmation number on a tag and attach the tag to the carcass or pelt.³

Across state lines the rule is about the seal, not the border:

No raw bobcat, fox, or coyote pelt, regardless of state of origin, shall be sold, exchanged, bartered, or offered for sale within Massachusetts unless said pelt bears an official tag, seal, or stamp issued or applied by the state within which said bobcat, fox, or coyote was taken.⁶

Altering, tampering with or reapplying a seal — or possessing a pelt bearing one — is separately prohibited.⁶

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

You can sell your own. Buying pelts requires a fur buyer’s license.

A person shall not purchase or receive the skins or pelts of any fur-bearing mammals unless he has obtained a fur buyer’s license from the director.³²

The statute expressly preserves the ordinary transaction at the other end: nothing in it prohibits “the purchase of a skin or skins from a licensed fur dealer, hunter or trapper, for the personal use of the purchaser and not for sale.”³²

Fur buyers must keep an account of every skin obtained and sold and file the required portions with the director by 1 April each year.³² Resident Fur Buyer Permit $45.00; non-resident $105.00.²⁹

And the pelt must carry its seal before it is sold — see the previous answer.

Is there a coyote bounty program in Massachusetts?

No. Massachusetts manages the coyote as a furbearer with a declared season, and MassWildlife’s published position is that harvest is not a population lever at all:

Coyote populations are virtually impossible to control regardless of hunting and trapping levels due to the structures of their populations and their breeding ecology. Coyote populations self-regulate, and they will only produce as many offspring as an area can support given available resources.³³

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

No. Massachusetts prohibits predator and furbearer contests outright, and the ban reaches participants:

It shall be unlawful for any person to organize, sponsor, promote, conduct or participate in a contest in which participants compete for prizes or other inducements that results in the capture, take or waste of those predatory or furbearing animals regulated by the Division pursuant to 321 CMR 3.02(3) or 3.02(5)(b)(2.) and (5.-11.).³⁴

321 CMR 3.02(3) is the fox, coyote and bobcat rule, so the coyote is squarely inside it.

A separate waste rule sits alongside it, and it applies to any animal hunted or trapped under 321 CMR 3.02:

It is unlawful for any person while hunting or trapping in accordance with 321 CMR 3.02 to waste an animal… “waste” means to intentionally or knowingly leave a wounded or dead animal that the person has hunted or trapped in the field or the forest without making a reasonable effort to retrieve the animal and use it.

Each such retrieved animal shall be retained in the individual’s possession or transferred to another and retained in their possession until processed or used as food, or for the pelt, feathers, or for taxidermy.³⁵

The waste rule’s own exception list excludes “those animals identified in M.G.L. c. 131, § 5 except for fox and wildcat”³⁵ — and as established at the top of this page, the coyote is not one of the animals identified in § 5. So the waste rule applies to coyotes in full, which is how MassWildlife lists it on the coyote page.³

Read those two together and Massachusetts has closed the loop: you may not run a contest, and you may not shoot a coyote and walk away from it either. Every coyote must be retrieved, used, and sealed within 48 hours.

On the out-of-state question, 321 CMR 2.16 prohibits organizing, sponsoring, promoting, conducting or participating in the contest. Hunting Massachusetts ground to submit an entry to a contest run elsewhere is participation on any natural reading, and the pelt could not lawfully be sold or exchanged here without its seal in any event.

Coyotes in Massachusetts

Are there coyotes in Massachusetts? How many, and where?

Everywhere on the mainland, and nowhere offshore.

The eastern coyote is well established throughout Massachusetts except on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.¹

Coyotes can be found in nearly every town and city in Massachusetts.³³

MassWildlife publishes no population estimate, and explains why rather than dodging: coyotes are territorial, each territory holds one family unit, and a single animal patrolling a 2-to-30-square-mile range gets reported repeatedly.³³ More sightings is not more coyotes.

Size: females typically 33–40 pounds, males 34–47, with an exceptional male around 60. “Coyotes often look heavier than they are because of their thick fur.”¹

Coat color varies more than people expect — “typical coat color is a grizzled gray but can vary from creamy blonde to red or nearly solid black.”¹ Massachusetts is far enough east that a genuinely black eastern coyote turns up occasionally.

Are Massachusetts coyotes dangerous to people or pets?

To people, very rarely, and MassWildlife is specific about the cause when it happens:

The chance of being attacked by a coyote is extremely low. The majority of bites of humans can be directly attributed to intentional feeding of coyotes by people. You have a far greater chance of being seriously bitten by a domestic dog or hit by a car than being attacked by a coyote.³³

To pets, the risk is real and MassWildlife treats it as normal behavior rather than a red flag. Its published behavior ladder puts a “nighttime attack on unsupervised pet” and a “daytime attack on unsupervised pet” at normal or normal/bold; an attack on a leashed pet with a human present is bold to very bold; and only physically attacking a person counts as aggressive.³³

Daytime activity is also normal, particularly in spring and summer while adults are feeding pups, and does not indicate rabies.³³ The rabies signs to report are lack of coordination, circling, paralysis, excessive salivation, self-mutilation or aggression toward inanimate objects — to the local animal control officer or police, or the Environmental Police on 1-800-632-8075.³³

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

Breeding peaks in mid-February, with 4 to 8 pups born in a den in April or May. Family units hold together until the pups disperse in late autumn.¹

The FAQ gives a wider litter range — 2 to 12, more typically 2 to 6 — reflecting how strongly food availability drives it.³³

Mid-February is the middle of your season and the end of your best calling. The season closes on 8 March, a few weeks after the breeding peak and well before the pups arrive.

When are coyotes most active in Massachusetts?

Dusk to dawn, but not exclusively:

Coyotes primarily travel between dusk and dawn, but coyotes can be active 24 hours a day.³³

The Massachusetts problem is that your legal window and their active window only partly overlap. Hunting closes at midnight and does not reopen until ½ hour before sunrise, so the deepest part of the night — often the most productive — is off limits. Work the two hours after sunset and the hour around first light.

Coyotes howl to hold territory, locate family, advertise for a mate in the breeding season, and to draw a threat away from a den site. MassWildlife also flags the “beau geste” effect, where two coyotes howling with pups sound like many more.³³

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 Massachusetts

Massachusetts rewards planning and punishes assumptions. Six things:

Your night rifle is a .22 LR. Not a .22 magnum, not a .17 HMR, not a .223. Section 67 is a year-round possession offence and it does not care whether you were hunting.

Sunday is a carry offence, not just a hunting offence. Leave the gun at home.

Seal every coyote within 48 hours. Online or at a check station, confirmation number written on a tag and attached, and the tag stays on until the pelt is dressed, tanned or mounted.

No light of any kind, and the truck is at risk. Section 68 forfeits the weapon on conviction and the vehicle may be seized and libeled.

Box traps only. Legholds, padded legholds and snares are all prohibited, at $300 to $1,000 per trap, with a lifetime ban on a second conviction.

The suppressor stays in the other state. Possession is a felony carrying up to five years.

And two December weeks change the rules entirely. During the shotgun deer season you lose rifles, handguns, dogs, all calls and the late hours, and you gain a 500-square-inch hunter orange requirement. Plan around it or plan for it.

Two answers on this page are honest gaps rather than verdicts, and both concern optics: whether thermal and whether passive night vision fall inside § 68’s “artificial light.” Massachusetts has never addressed either, and the forfeiture penalty makes this a bad question to be wrong about. Ring MassWildlife on 508-389-6300.

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

No, and Massachusetts goes further than most states by naming the hybrid too.

No person shall possess, sell, trade, breed, import, export or release a wild canid hybrid or wild felid hybrid, except as otherwise provided by rules and regulations of the division. Any mammal which is the offspring of the reproduction between any species of wild canid or hybrid wild canid and a domestic dog… or is represented by its owner to be a wolf hybrid, coyote hybrid, coy dog or any other kind of wild canid hybrid… shall be considered to be wild mammals and subject to the provisions of this chapter.³⁶

A narrow grandfather exists for animals possessed as of 1 January 1994 whose owners obtained a permit by 31 July 1994.³⁶ Possession of live mammals otherwise requires a license from the director under § 23.²¹

If you have found an orphaned pup, contact MassWildlife on 508-389-6300 or a licensed wildlife rehabilitator rather than keeping it.

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