Walking Your Dog in Cyprus During Hunting Season (2026–27): Hunting Days, Poisoned Baits and Safe Places to Walk

Cyprus's main hunting season opens on Sunday 1 November 2026 and runs every Sunday and Wednesday until 27 December, with thrush hunting on the same two days from 3 January to 28 February 2027. On those mornings, keep your dog close to town or at a dog beach, put it on a lead and in hi-vis if you head into the countryside, and never let it pick anything up: poisoned baits are a bigger everyday danger to pets than stray shot.

Around 36,000 people went out on the opening day in 2025, so the countryside is genuinely busy. Here is the 2026–27 calendar, the distance rules that protect you, what to do if your dog finds poison, and where to walk instead.

When is hunting season in Cyprus in 2026–27?

The Game and Fauna Service splits the year into three periods. The dates below were announced in late July 2026 when licence renewals opened.

For the busiest stretch, these are the 2026 dates to plan your walks around:

• November: Sun 1, Wed 4, Sun 8, Wed 11, Sun 15, Wed 18, Sun 22, Wed 25, Sun 29
• December: Wed 2, Sun 6, Wed 9, Sun 13, Wed 16, Sun 20, Wed 23, Sun 27

Shooting is only allowed in daylight, and the first few hours after dawn are the busiest, which is exactly when most of us walk dogs before work. Quail can be hunted until 27 December, and some coastal areas allow hunting of certain birds on other days, so the occasional shot on a Saturday or a Monday near the coast is not necessarily illegal.

Check each year: the government sets new dates every summer, and the opening day moves between late October and early November.

How close to houses can hunters shoot?

According to the authorities' contact sheet published by BirdLife Cyprus, and confirmed by the Game Fund in February 2026:

• No shooting within 500 metres of any built-up area.
• No shooting within 200 metres of an isolated house.
• No entering fenced land.
• No hunting in game reservesWetlands or Wildlife Conservation Areas, which are marked with orange signs, and no hunting from a moving vehicle.
• Hunters must wear high-visibility clothing and carry their hunting and firearms licences.

In practice, this means a walk that stays inside a village or town, or within a few hundred metres of homes on the edge of a settlement, keeps you in an area where shooting is banned. The risk starts when you leave the last houses for open scrub, farm tracks, carob and olive groves, or the foothills, which are exactly the places hunters look for hare and partridge.

Complaints about hunters ignoring these limits are rising, even though the number of hunters is falling, according to the Game Fund. Expats living on the edges of villages in the Paphos hills, the Limassol wine villages and around Larnaca often report pellets landing in gardens on Sunday mornings.

Is it safe to walk a dog in the countryside on hunting days?

It can be, if you are visible and your dog is under control. Hunters scan for movement in the undergrowth, and a dog running through the scrub looks a lot like game.

Before you go

1. Check the calendar above. If it is a Sunday or Wednesday between November and February, choose a route close to houses or switch to one of the alternatives below.
2. Go later in the morning or in the afternoon, when most hunters have gone home.
3. Put a bright orange or yellow hi-vis vest on your dog and wear something bright yourself. Avoid brown, beige and green.
4. Add a bell or a small light to your dog's collar so it can be heard and seen in thick scrub.
5. Make sure the microchip details and your phone number are up to date, in case your dog bolts at the sound of shooting.

On the walk

• Keep your dog on a lead. Off-lead dogs are the ones that get shot at, run into traps or find baits.
• Stay on main tracks and avoid dense scrub, gullies and field edges where hunters wait.
• Make yourself known. If you hear shooting close by, call out, talk loudly and move away calmly.
• Do not argue with hunters over distances. Note the time, place and any car number, leave, and report it.
• Watch for orange signs. They mark areas where hunting is banned, which makes them good places to walk.

How do you spot a poisoned bait?

Poisoned baits are illegal in Cyprus but are still used against foxes, stray dogs and cats, and sometimes in rivalries between people training hunting dogs. In early 2025 the British bases recorded four cases of dogs and foxes poisoned around Akrotiri and Episkopi in three months. Baits turn up all year, not only in hunting season, but more people and dogs are out in the countryside from November.

BirdLife Cyprus lists these warning signs:

• Meat, animal remains, eggs, tinned food or other food lying somewhere it should not be.
• Food or a carcass covered with granules, powder or liquid.
• Dead animals, especially birds of prey, foxes, dogs or cats, and several dead animals in one place.
• Dead insects around a bait or carcass.

The safest habit is to train a reliable "leave it" and, if your dog scavenges, use a comfortable basket muzzle on countryside walks.

What to do if your dog eats poison

Poisoning is an emergency. Signs depend on the substance and can include foaming or drooling, vomiting, shaking, seizures, weakness and collapse. Some poisons act within minutes; others take hours.

Step by step

1. Phone an emergency vet immediately and say you are on your way, so a vet is ready when you arrive.
2. Do not make your dog vomit unless the vet tells you to. Old home remedies such as salt water can be dangerous.
3. Take a photo of what your dog ate, from a safe distance, and note the exact location or drop a pin on your phone.
4. Do not touch, move or bury the bait or any dead animal. Some poisons are dangerous to people through the skin.
5. Report the bait (see below) once your dog is with the vet.

Emergency vets by area

Most "24/7" services in Cyprus are on-call phone lines, not walk-in hospitals, so always ring first. These clinics, listed in our vets by city guide, run emergency lines:

In Larnaca and Famagusta district, few clinics advertise round-the-clock cover. Ask your own vet now who covers nights and Sundays, and save that number along with a Nicosia or Limassol hospital.

How to report poisoning or illegal hunting

The Game Fund admits it cannot answer every call: it has fewer than 250 staff and only three to six patrols per district on a hunting day. Give a precise location, the time, and a description of people, vehicles or registration numbers. If you get no answer, file a complaint at the nearest police station, which passes it on. BirdLife Cyprus also explains how to report illegal hunting and trapping. For welfare cases involving owned animals, the Veterinary Services are the government department responsible for animal welfare.

Where can I walk my dog on hunting days?

Anywhere inside the 500-metre built-up zone is off limits to shooting, so the simplest answer is to stay in town on Sunday and Wednesday mornings.

Full details, rules and directions for each beach are in our guide to dog beaches and pet-friendly cafés. Remember that some coastal areas allow daily bird hunting, so on remote beaches such as Prolimnos and Pitili the lead and hi-vis rules still apply on the walk in. Fenced dog parks are rare in Cyprus; some boarding kennels and daycare centres, listed in our guide to pet sitters, boarding and dog walkers, offer secure play areas you can book.

What to do next

Before the season opens, save an emergency vet number from our vets by city guide and order a hi-vis vest. Then read pet care in Cyprus: vaccinations, insurance and heat, because insurance that covers emergency poisoning treatment is worth having. If you have only just arrived, our guide to bringing a dog or cat to Cyprus covers microchips, registration and the local dog licence.