Can I hunt or shoot on my own property in BC?

What the answer means

Owning the land doesn't change the Wildlife Act: hunting on it takes a hunting licence and the open season, shooting hours and methods the regulations set for its wildlife management unit. The Province's no shooting areas, a strip along every two-lane provincial highway among them, and a town's or regional district's firearm discharge bylaw can ban firing a gun there at all. Others need your consent to hunt cultivated land, and the Trespass Act lets you keep them off. Every BC place's wildlife management units are listed below.

A licence, even on your own land

Hunting wildlife anywhere in BC takes a hunting licence and any species licence, limited entry authorization or permit the regulations require; a hunter under 18 must be with a licensed adult. A First Nations person living in BC doesn't need the hunting licence (Wildlife Act s. 11). Owning the land gives no right in the wildlife on it.

Seasons, hours and methods

No hunting outside the open season, with a gun or bow outside the shooting hours, with a light at night, with poison or a set gun, or of an endangered or threatened species or in a wildlife sanctuary. One exception is the owner's: wildlife on your own property that threatens your domestic animals or birds may be taken outside the season and the hours (Wildlife Act s. 26). Hunting without reasonable care for other people's lives, safety or property is an offence of its own (s. 28). The synopsis gives each wildlife management unit's seasons and bag limits; the units over each place are listed below.

No shooting areas

The Closed Areas Regulation names areas where no gun may be fired, where hunting is closed, or where only shot or no rifle may be used, some all year and some for part of it, in schedules the synopsis maps by unit (ss. 2 to 7, 10). Along every public road of two lanes or more that the Province maintains, the road allowance is a no shooting area: the road, its shoulder and ditch to 15 m from the midline of a two-lane road, or from the edge of the pavement of a wider one, or to a fence or cultivated land if nearer (s. 12). Firing a gun in a no shooting area, or on or across such a highway, is an offence (Wildlife Act ss. 31, 32).

Towns and regional districts

A council may regulate or ban firing guns by bylaw, and many towns do, over all or part of their area (Community Charter s. 8 (5)). A regional district's firearm discharge bylaw gives way where a Wildlife Act regulation on discharge is in force (Local Government Act s. 423). There's no list for the province: ask the local government, and the police for what the Criminal Code adds.

Others hunting on your land

No one may hunt over cultivated land, or trap on it, without the owner's, lessee's or occupier's consent (Wildlife Act s. 39). Fenced land, or land posted with no-trespassing signs at each usual way in, is closed under the Trespass Act: anyone coming in without consent commits an offence, and on any land, so does someone who stays after being told to leave. A guide outfitter territory over the lot gives its holder no right to hunt there, and a registered trapline gives no right to trap on titled land: the owner or occupier may, and anyone else needs their written permission (ss. 41, 67). See traplines.

What it means for a buyer

Land in the country isn't land you can hunt or shoot on by default. Ask the local government about a discharge bylaw, look the lot up in the synopsis for closed areas and its unit, and measure from any two-lane highway. Ask the seller whether hunters use the lot, by permission or not (our reading).

Our summary of the Wildlife Act, its Closed Areas Regulation, the Community Charter and the Local Government Act, read on BC Laws 2026-10-19, and of the Trespass Act read 2026-10-07. The Acts and regulations have more conditions than these lines say, and the synopsis and its corrections change every two years: check the current one before you hunt.

Sources, read 2026-10-19 and summarised in our words unless marked otherwise: Wildlife Act, RSBC 1996, c. 488 (ss. 11, 26, 28, 31, 32, 39, 41, 67); Closed Areas Regulation, B.C. Reg. 76/84 (ss. 2 to 7, 10, 12); Community Charter, Part 2 (s. 8 (5)); Local Government Act, Part 12 (s. 423); Trespass Act, RSBC 2018, c. 3, ss. 1, 2 and 4 (summarised in our words, read 2026-10-07); Wildlife Management Units, Province of BC (Open Government Licence – British Columbia); Hunting and Trapping Regulations Synopsis, Province of BC (the Province's own synopsis, linked).

By place

The wildlife management units over each of 319 BC places, listed by name, with the share of the place's land each takes in (units under 5% left out, but always the largest). A unit's number starts with its region's. The synopsis gives each unit's seasons, bag limits and closed areas.

From Wildlife Management Units, Province of BC, read 2026-10-19; shares measured by us on the 2021 census boundaries. A unit's open seasons apply in a town too, but the town's own bylaw can ban firing a gun there.