Organized competitions around the “harvesting” or killing of coyotes for prizes could soon be officially recognized and regulated by Nevada officials — a move welcomed by some hunters, but one that conservationists and other opponents fear will validate a practice they say should be banned.

The Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) Commission, the nine-member, governor-appointed panel responsible for establishing policy and setting regulations for state wildlife officials, on Saturday passed a regulation on an 6-3 vote establishing a season and hunting requirements for coyote calling competitions. The regulation will be finalized after the Legislative Commission, a panel of state lawmakers that approves agency regulations, votes on it later this year. 

Under the regulation, the contest season will run from Sept. 1 to March 31. Participants will be required to hold a trapping or hunting license to participate. 

“I think this is a good thing, it shows we want to follow laws,” George Forbush, board member for the nonprofit Coalition for Nevada’s Wildlife and president of the Nevada Predator Hunting Association, said at a June commission meeting in Elko. “We want to do this activity and we just want to be recognized as a legitimate sport for us, if you want to call it a sport, or activity.”

But passing the regulation won’t make any changes to existing competitions, said David McNinch, a former commissioner who served for 23 years until this summer, when Gov. Joe Lombardo did not reappoint him.

“Putting the regulation in place does nothing to change the timing of these events or behaviors,” McNinch said. “It’s just a way to say we did something, even though nothing’s been done.”

It’s the latest development in years of political waffling over how to address the contests, which draw heat from wildlife supporters and advocacy groups. Lawmakers have twice failed to advance bills to kill the competitions, and commissioners have declined multiple times to outlaw the contests. 

Speaking at a subcommittee hearing last year, Humane World for Animals lobbyist Warren Hardy said formally recognizing the contests “is going to make it worse” and that he’d rather maintain the status quo than adopt a compromise legitimizing the contests.

But, “That’s exactly what we want on our end,” Forbush said in a call with The Nevada Independent. “If you think about it, there’s no law that says you can go do a fishing derby for cash and prizes. But you can do it, and it’s backed by NDOW.”

Similar regulations, he said, could apply to coyote calling contests. 

“It’s legitimate, it’s on paper, and everyone realizes it can happen and be legally done within these parameters, and those parameters just happen to be the hunting license and the season,” he said. 

Family-friendly events or bad policy? 

The Nevada Department of Wildlife manages nearly 900 species. Of those, about 70 are available for sportsmen to pursue — including coyotes, whose statewide population ranges between 150,000 and 175,000, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

Viewed by many as pests, coyotes are listed as an “unprotected” species in Nevada, meaning they can be hunted year-round without a license, and there is no limit on how many can be killed. 

Proponents describe coyote calling contests as family-friendly gatherings that help rural economies and curb the number of predators, increasing the health of big game species.

Read more: Coyote calling contests: Nevada’s search for a compromise that likely doesn’t exist

But in 2023, an undercover investigator for Humane World for Animals (formerly the Humane Society) attended coyote calling contests in Nevada and observed participants with assault rifles fitted with night vision and thermal imaging scopes. Some participants flaunted the large number of coyotes killed on social media, with posts showing piles of carcasses. 

The commission’s passing of the regulation legitimizes the events, said Rebecca Goff, Nevada director for the Humane World for Animals.

“Instead of banning it … they’re legitimizing it,” she said. “They’re taking something Nevadans don’t agree with and making it a sanctioned event.” 

The wildlife commission — composed of five sportsmen, one conservationist, one farmer, one rancher and one member of the public — has voted three times during the last decade not to outlaw the competitions. 

Following another vote by the commission to not outlaw the contests in 2021, the Clark County Commission and Reno City Council passed resolutions supporting a ban. Multiple rural county commissions responded by passing resolutions supporting them.

State lawmakers have also punted on the issue.

A 2019 bill would have outlawed the contests, provided a penalty for participating in them and required anyone who injured a coyote during a competition to transport the animal to a veterinarian. It never received a hearing.

In 2023, Assm. Howard Watts (D-Las Vegas) and Sen. Melanie Scheible (D-Las Vegas) proposed a similar bill. Led by the Humane World for Animals, the bill had a narrower focus — prohibiting contests while ensuring landowners could still protect their livestock or property from predators such as coyotes. The bill never moved out of the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources. 

In 2024, the Humane World for Animals went back to the state wildlife commission, but at the suggestion of McNinch, withdrew its petition. Instead, it tasked a subcommittee to study the issue.

McNinch chaired the three-person subcommittee, which ultimately recommended the regulation language to the commission. McNinch told The Nevada Independent he voted in step with the other two commissioners to show solidarity.

But when it came time for a first vote on the matter at the full commission meeting in June in Elko, McNinch, the conservationist on the panel, was the lone no vote. (Three commissioners were absent that day.) The meeting was his last.

“Legitimizing contests pushes beyond what was intended with the development (of) the North American Model for Wildlife Conservation, which was largely put together by sportsmen to frame their own behaviors and maintain relevancy,” McNinch said at the time. “I just feel it’s bad policy … erodes public support for the agency and for conservation of wildlife.”

The North American Model for Wildlife Conservation has seven core tenets supporting wildlife as a public resource that need to be managed in sustainable ways, including that wildlife should only be killed for a legitimate purpose (while also specifying that individuals can kill certain animals to protect property or in self-defense) and that the best available science be used to make informed decisions regarding wildlife management.

Other states have previously enacted rules around killing contests, but ultimately rescinded them due to public outcry, according to Goff. In the 1990s, Colorado established restrictions on the number of coyotes that could be killed per participant at each event; in 2020 it switched course and banned the contests. Washington also tried its hand at overseeing contests, requiring hunting permits. The state’s wildlife commission banned the contests in 2020.

Now, 10 states have outlawed wildlife contests — some passed legislation, while others prohibited the contests through state wildlife agency rulemaking. 

Last year, a Tennessee congressman introduced legislation with 19 co-sponsors that would make it unlawful for anyone to organize, sponsor, conduct or participate in wildlife killing contests on public lands, with limited exceptions. The bill had 19 co-sponsors, including Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV).

That bill would have only extended to federal land; individual states would still need to pass bills for state-owned land.