Colorado Following California To Eliminate Coyote Hunting?

You may have read another Eastmans’ Blog about California possibly eliminating coyote hunting. The California Fish and Game Commission Wildlife Resources Committee (WRC) is proposing a change to prohibit the take of nongame mammals except per California Fish and Game code 4152.  This would move the take of coyotes into the “depredation” category which would mean if you’re a rancher you must wait for a coyote to attack your cattle/sheep before you are legally able to shoot it.  

Proposals like this have some folks rightly concerned about Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) recently eliminating a provision which allowed coyotes to be taken without a license during any big game season provided that the hunter has an unfilled big game license for that season and unit. 

Is Colorado following California’s lead to eliminate coyote hunting?  Thankfully no … Colorado is NOT eliminating coyote hunting (or following California’s lead which is almost always bad).

What CPW did was eliminate the provision discussed above allowing coyotes to be taken without a license during any big game season and change: Article I, General Provisions, #304 – License Requirements: to read “A small game license authorizes the take of coyotes, and those species defined as small game, except wild turkey.” 

Here’s how CPW explains, “Removing the ability to take coyotes by a hunter with an unfilled big game license”: For many years, big game hunters with unfilled big game license could take coyotes under a provision allowing harvest during the season with the same method of take as their big game license. Removing this provision will clean up regulation by removing a secondary redundant method, to take coyotes during big game seasons. This is redundant as a strong majority of big game hunters already possess a small game license either as a qualifying license or because of their additional interest in hunting small game. 

So there you have it, CPW was simply cleaning up regulations by removing a redundancy and as long as you have your small game qualifying license while hunting big game you can still pop a coyote if you desire … and all remains right with the world… for now. 

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