A 16-year-old girl was sleeping outside a tent at a campground in Cape Breton Highlands National Park when she was attacked. (CBC) A coyote hunt is underway in Nova Scotia after a sleeping teenager was bitten at Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

The 16-year-old girl was in a sleeping bag outside a tent when a coyote bit her twice in the back of the head early Monday.

Parks Canada officials have set traps for the animal around the Broad Cove area of the park, near Ingonish.

"I think from an incident point of view it really surprised us that this happened in this area," said Derek Quann, a resource conservation manager.

"We'll have to trap some animals, hopefully to get this one, and test them for rabies and other things."

Quann acknowledged that finding the animal involved in this attack would be difficult. But he said coyotes often learn aggressive behaviour from each other, so trapping other animals from the same family may help prevent other incidents.

"Our focus is not on catching one animal that bit the 16-year-old girl. The focus is really on recognizing that these coyotes in this whole group are probably much too habituated and familiar with people and have taken things too far along those lines," he said.

"So what we need to do is to correct any learning that has gone on in this group that would make them much more forward and agressive toward humans."

The girl and her family were staying at the Broad Cove campground when the coyote attacked at about 4:30 a.m. She was taken by ambulance to a hospital in Neils Harbour, where she received 10 stitches.

Quann said the girl screamed and struck the animal, scaring it away. Another camper reported seeing the coyote leave the campground.

He said the girl did the right thing by making noise, "acting big" and not fleeing.

Coyote incidents increasing

Parks official Derek Quann said traps have been set around the Broad Cove area of the park, near Ingonish. (CBC) Reports about aggressive coyotes have been increasing, according to parks officials and representative from the Natural Resources Ministry.

John MacDonell, Nova Scotia's natural resources minister, said Tuesday he would not be surprised if there are more attacks in the future.

"It's obvious that there's every possibility," MacDonell said. "You don't really know much about it until it happens, so I think my fear is that we will."

There are an estimated 8,000 coyotes in Nova Scotia. Starting in October, the provincial government will pay licensed trappers $20 a pelt as a way to reduce the problem coyote population.

"That was the reason that we put this program in place in the first place, so it's the hope that when the trapping season starts we'll be able to get some of these aggressive animals out of the population before there is an incident," MacDonell said.

Last October, a 19-year-old folksinger from Toronto was killed in a coyote attack in the park. Taylor Josephine Stephanie Luciow, known as Taylor Mitchell, was hiking alone on the Skyline Trail when at least two coyotes lunged at her. She later died in hospital.

Quann said several coyotes have been captured since then and they were all in good condition.

Monday's incident happened about 40 kilometres away from last year's attack, so parks officials do not believe it was the same coyote pack.

Parks Canada has launched a coyote awareness campaign to warn campers about the dangers of aggressive animals.