Oregon · Rabbit · 2026 Edition
Oregon Rabbit Season 2026: Dates & Bag Limits
01 — Seasons
| Season | Zone | Dates |
|---|---|---|
| Rabbit & hare (brush rabbit, cottontail species, black-tailed jackrabbit, snowshoe hare) | Statewide (individual wildlife areas may set local access dates) | Jan 1 – Dec 31 |
02 — Bag limits
| Daily | No limit |
|---|---|
| Possession | No limit |
| White-tailed jackrabbit & pygmy rabbit | Protected — not legal to hunt |
03 — Shooting hours
No shooting-hours restriction — legal at any hour during the open season.
Rule: No codified shooting-hours restriction on rabbit. Rabbit has no section of its own in either OAR Division 65 (Game Mammals) or the protected-mammals division, and no hours clause reaches it.
04 — License
Rabbit hunters in Oregon need an Oregon hunting license — No license is required for a landowner (or their agent) hunting rabbit on their own land; everyone else needs a standard Oregon hunting license.
Where to hunt public land in Oregon — WMAs by county & access rules →
05 — FAQ
When does rabbit season start in Oregon?
Oregon runs rabbit season year-round — there's no opening day to wait for.
When does rabbit season end in Oregon?
It doesn't — Oregon has no closed season on rabbit, per Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Is there a closed season on rabbit in Oregon?
No — rabbit can be hunted in Oregon every day of the year, subject to the bag limit and legal shooting hours above.
How many rabbits can you shoot in Oregon per day?
2026 bag limits: Daily — No limit. Possession — No limit. White-tailed jackrabbit & pygmy rabbit — Protected — not legal to hunt. Limits are set per zone and per permit — check the agency's own regulations before you hunt.
What time can you start shooting rabbit in Oregon?
There is no shooting-hours restriction — rabbit may legally be hunted at any hour during the open season in Oregon. The rule is: No codified shooting-hours restriction on rabbit. Rabbit has no section of its own in either OAR Division 65 (Game Mammals) or the protected-mammals division, and no hours clause reaches it.
Can I hunt rabbits on my own land in Oregon without a license?
Oregon exempts a resident hunting on land they or an immediate family member owns and lives on — for every species except the ones that need a tag or permit, which still applies for big game.
Verified · Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife · Last verified 2026-08-14
Publisher's note. Two independent official ODFW pages (myodfw.com/articles/how-hunt-rabbit and myodfw.com/articles/small-game-hunting-oregon), fetched directly, both state explicitly there is no closed season and no bag limit for Oregon's huntable rabbit/hare species — brush rabbit, Nuttall's/eastern/mountain cottontail, black-tailed jackrabbit, and snowshoe hare. White-tailed jackrabbit and pygmy rabbit are protected and not legal to hunt, per the same pages. A hunting license is required except for landowners (or their agents) hunting on their own land. Individual state wildlife areas can impose their own local access-date restrictions (e.g. Sauvie Island, E.E. Wilson) — these are property-access rules, not a change to the statewide season. Shooting hours could NOT be confirmed: Oregon's codified half-hour-before-sunrise/after-sunset rule (OAR 635-065-0730) is scoped to 'game mammals' (deer, elk, bear, cougar, etc.), a different classification from the 'unprotected mammals' category ODFW uses for rabbits/hares in its own web copy — no statutory text was found applying either the standard rule or an exemption to rabbits specifically. RECONFIRMED 2026-08-16: checked OAR Chapter 635 Division 50 (Furbearing and Unprotected Mammal Regulations, section 635-050-0165 names badger/coyote/nutria/opossum/porcupine/skunk/weasel as the codified 'unprotected mammals' — no rabbit) as well as Division 65 (Game Mammals) — rabbit has no section of its own in either division. EXPLICIT shootingHours MARKER (2026-08-27): this file now carries shootingHours.unrestricted = true. Simply omitting the field did NOT work and had been silently wrong on the live page: the season templates read season.shootingHours ?? meta.shootingHours, so an absent block fell through to the state-level default in states.json and the page printed a computed sunrise/sunset window plus a rule the law does not impose - while the licence section right below it said the opposite. The templates now honour the marker and print the no-restriction sentence instead. The original reasoning stands: Oregon sets no codified hunting-hours restriction on rabbit, so any offset — including 0/0 — would state a limit the rules do not impose. This is the correct answer, not a gap to be filled.