DETROIT — Michigan's Natural Resources Commission is considering returning to a year-round coyote hunting season for the state, a proposal some hunting advocates say would fix "a grievous error," while animal rights proponents argue is unethical.

The commission — a seven-member body appointed by the governor that regulates the taking of game and sportfish, designates game species and establishes the first open season for animals — voted more than a year ago to close the coyote season from mid-April to mid-July, which is when coyotes typically care for pups. But the commission is reconsidering that decision.

A new Wildlife Conservation Order Amendment, proposed by Commissioner John Walters, would make coyote hunting season year-round again. The proposal is on the agenda for the Natural Resources Commission's Thursday meeting in Lansing.

The proposal comes as two hunter organizations, the Michigan United Conservation Clubs and the Michigan Trappers and Predator Callers Association, are suing the commission over its decision in March 2024 to shorten the season.

The two groups said the season was closed because of "social pressures" and noted that game management decisions should be "rooted in science." They said the coyote population needs to be managed so it doesn't grow too large.

The decision to shorten the season was "not based in any need to manage coyotes for any management or biological reason," said Justin Tomei, policy and government affairs manager for Michigan United Conservation Clubs.

But animal rights advocates said the nine-month hunting policy won't reduce the coyote population and argued it's inhumane to kill coyote parents while they are raising their young.

"Hunting during this time hugely increases the possibility that you're going to orphan a pack of pups, and they're going to starve to death," said Naomi Louchouarn, the program director for wildlife partnerships at Humane World for Animals.

Walter, the commissioner who advanced the year-round hunting plan in February, declined to talk about the measure, citing the pending litigation. He said, though, he hopes the amendment gets a vote next week, but doesn't know for certain it will.

Breeding season

Breeding season for coyotes — which are common all over Michigan and found in all 83 counties — is from January to March. People are most likely to see and hear coyotes during that period, according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

If there is a den nearby, people might also see adult coyotes throughout the summer as they care for their pups. In Michigan, coyotes have between four and seven pups. As fall approaches, pups begin dispersing from the den to create home ranges of their own. Coyotes are active day and night, but their activity peaks at sunrise and sunset, according to the DNR.

Stanley Gehrt, a professor at Ohio State University and the principal investigator of the Cook County Coyote Project, which studies coyotes in the Chicago metropolitan area, said coyote hunting usually won't lower the coyote population statewide, as there aren't enough hunters to affect the population. But from "an ethical standpoint," he said he can see why some animal rights groups would want to restrict the hunting of coyotes in the spring, which is when coyotes reproduce.

"A lot of coyote management is dictated by politics more than biology or ethics," Gehrt said.

There were an estimated 50,131 licensed coyote hunters in Michigan in 2021, according to the Small Game Harvest Survey Report from the natural resources department. Figures for 2022, 2023 and 2024 weren't available.

Last year's decision

The Natural Resources Commission has gone back and forth on allowing a nine-month hunting season for coyote versus a year-long one. The 2024 vote, which was 4-2, reversed a previous decision made by the Natural Resources Commission in 2016, when the board made the season year-round.

Tom Baird, a former commissioner who chaired the panel during that March 2024 vote, said at the 2024 meeting that hunters and trappers proposed the change to a nine-month season. Animal rights advocates supported their proposal, and some turned out to the March 14 meeting.

Baird said the Natural Resources Commission is always looking at stakeholder preferences, "whether or not they have biological impact."

"We're always looking at public interest and public input and public trust, knowing that wildlife in Michigan is sort of owned by all of us in Michigan, not just one group or another," he said, "and we take so-called social or non-scientific considerations into account all the time."

A DNR document from January 2024 said the majority of the Furtaker User Group — an advisory body to the Natural Resources Commission — supported the proposed regulation change and shortening the coyote hunting season to nine months. The DNR said several trapping and hunting groups and individuals had requested the department change the coyote hunting season “due to public perception and potential future impacts to their hunting and trapping opportunities.” The department had also been contacted by some predator callers who were opposed to the change.

The DNR noted that there is “concern about social perception and future loss of management tools if the open season continues to allow coyotes to be taken when there are dependent young present.”

Baird, the commission's former chair, said the coyote population in Michigan is stable and not increasing, and the effect of lengthening the season was "none, basically." The DNR does not list an estimated population for coyotes.

He also said nuisance hunting for coyotes would still be allowed on private property year-round.

Walters, one of two commissioners who opposed the hunting season change last year, said at the 2024 meeting there is a "lot of gray area" on nuisance hunting. For example, it's up to the hunter to identify whether there's a nuisance.

"We are essentially then putting all the weight in the off-season on the hunter and on the conservation officers to make the right call," Walters said at the meeting.

Hunter groups support proposal

The MUCC's Tomei said his organization exists to keep game management decisions "rooted in science, rooted in biology, and not in political pressures or social pressures or any other real significant factor."

"And so when the commission voted last year … to partially close the season for those 90ish days, the justifications given were purely based on assumptions of social pressure or fear of something may happen through some other avenue to restrict opportunity, and not based in any need to manage coyotes for any management or biological reason," he said.

The MUCC sees returning to year-round hunting as "kind of fixing a grievous error," Tomei said.

After the hunting season was shortened, the Michigan United Conservation Clubs and the Michigan Trappers and Predator Callers Association — who were not among the hunters and trappers who asked to shorten the season — both filed lawsuits against the commission, and those cases have since been combined. Tomei said they are waiting for an Ingham County judge to either order oral arguments or rule just on the briefs that have been filed.

Merle Jones, the public relations director for the Michigan Trappers and Predator Callers Association, said hunting coyote is "no different than enjoying hunting any other species."

"We are part of the animal kingdom, and it's part of our nature to hunt," Jones said. "That's why we enjoy the sports of hunting because, again, it fulfills part of our human nature.

Jones said most hunting for coyotes is done at night, and hunters try to attract coyotes by making vocal noises such as the sound of a rabbit in distress or another coyote.

"Essentially, at that point, the hunter has become the hunted, because now they're hunting you," he said. "So there's a fair amount of challenge there, trying to go through that process to your end result."

Jones argued that coyote hunting and trapping is "primarily a management tool."

Ohio State's Gehrt said while hunting and trapping are often effective management tools for most other species, it is "not so much for coyotes," unless it is to remove a specific coyote that is causing conflicts.

'Just inhumane'

Mitchell Nelson, the Michigan state director of state affairs for the nonprofit Humane World for Animals, said the proposed return to year-round hunting isn't "the result of a public mandate or public push or anything like that."

"There's a very small but very loud minority in the hunting community who's advocating for measures like this," Nelson said.

Jill Fritz, the senior director of wildlife protection for Humane World for Animals, said hunting and trapping adult coyotes while they are raising their pups in their den is "just inhumane." Coyote pups are born in the spring, and they depend on their parents for several months, she said.

But Jones disputes that year-round hunting leaves more coyote pups motherless. When hunters call coyotes in the spring, he said mothers generally won’t respond to the calls and will remain in their dens while their pups are dependent on them. Only males and females that aren’t raising young would respond to the calls, Jones said, and those are the animals that would get killed.

“If the coyote comes to our calls, the odds of it being the mother of dependent young in their den are extremely, extremely low,” he said.

How Michigan's season compares

Even if the commission rejects the proposal to return to year-round hunting, the coyote season would "still be one of the most liberal seasons in the state, open for nine months," according to a 2024 DNR report.

Gehrt said Indiana is the only other Midwestern state that has some limitations to the length of the coyote harvest, but it's only for public lands. Hunting on private land can happen year-round. He said some northeastern states, such as Massachusetts and New York state, limit the season.

Gehrt said coyote hunting in general doesn't help lower the numbers of coyotes, Gehrt said. However, he said the most effective time to achieve that goal is the spring.

At the local level, hunting coyote parents in the spring can temporarily reduce a coyote population because the parents' litter won't survive, Gehrt said. But it doesn't have any "long-term effect" on coyote numbers, he said.

"And it definitely wouldn't have any effect statewide," Gerht said.

Nelson of Humane World for Animals said his organization is letting its volunteers know about Thursday's meeting.

“And we're talking to other organizations and really want to make sure that we have a strong voice in the room" for opponents of this proposal, he said.

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