The Nova Scotia government will introduce a coyote pelt incentive next fall in an effort to reduce the number of coyotes in the province. (CBC)

New Brunswick doesn't plan to follow Nova Scotia's strategy for controlling the coyote population, according to a wildlife biologist.

Nova Scotia announced last week that it will offer trappers $20 per coyote pelt, starting next fall.

But New Brunswick prefers to let nature to take its course, said Jean-Michel Devink, of the provincial Department of Natural Resources.

"New Brunswick typically feels that a bounty wouldn't be effective and we don't believe it's necessary at this point in our province," he said.

"By the time that kind of program could roll around to try to reduce the surplus coyotes on the landscape right now, chances are natural systems like disease and starvation would have taken effect already."

Similar cull efforts have backfired

Devink declined to comment directly on Nova Scotia's strategy, but said similar efforts to cull coyote populations have backfired in the past.

"Initially while you might reduce coyotes out there a little bit, if there's ample food out there, coyotes will actually do what's called compensatory reproduction, which means instead of having two or three pups, they'll ramp it up a bit and have seven, or 12, or even up to 14 pups."

Concerns over increasingly aggressive coyotes came to a head in Nova Scotia last October when a Toronto woman was mauled to death in Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

Taylor Mitchell, 19, was on the Skyline Trail near Cheticamp when she was attacked by two coyotes, which were subsequently killed.

Not traditional bounty

Last Thursday, Nova Scotia's Natural Resources Minister John MacDonell announced a new $20 fee for trappers, but stressed it's a "pelt incentive plan" designed to change coyote behaviour, not a "traditional bounty."

"Our wildlife biologists indicate that this trapping incentive program should help discourage over familiarity and boldness of coyotes towards humans," MacDonnell said.

The plan, which takes effect with the trapping season Oct. 15, is to live trap animals by using a non-lethal snare in populated areas and licensed trappers will then kill the coyotes.

The province will also put 15 trappers on call to deal with complaints about aggressive coyotes. Starting next week, coyotes found near communities will be captured and killed.

MacDonell has estimated as many as 4,000 coyotes could be killed by next spring. It's estimated there are about 8,000 coyotes in Nova Scotia.

In February, a New Brunswick woman wrestled with a coyote after being attacked in her backyard in Saint-Charles, near Richibucto.

And in January, a woman in Quispamsis said a coyote followed her and her three dogs through a residential neighourhood.

Devink said people should never try to run away from a coyote, but rather make lots of noise and try to scare the animal away.