Trappers will get $20 for each pelt. (CBC)

Nova Scotia's coyote bounty begins Friday with the start of trapping season.

Trappers will get $20 for each coyote pelt until March 31, when the season ends.

Natural Resources Minister John MacDonell said the pelt incentive program is an attempt to protect Nova Scotians from aggressive coyotes.

He said his department has also hired a wildlife biologist to look at conflicts between humans and wildlife and is training 15 trappers to target problem coyotes.

This will all help to reinstil a fear of humans in the animals, he said.

MacDonell said department officials have removed more than a dozen "potentially dangerous" coyotes from school properties and other public areas since April.

Gary Fisher, president of the Trappers Association of Nova Scotia, said the pelt incentive is enticing former trappers to return this year.

Calls for bounty

There are an estimated 8,000 coyotes in Nova Scotia. Earlier this year, MacDonell said as many as 4,000 could be killed by next spring.

There were several calls to bring in a bounty after the death of a Toronto singer last October. Taylor Mitchell, 19, was killed by two coyotes while hiking the Skyline Trail in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. Both animals have since been caught and destroyed.

U.S. website urges tourist boycott

The coyote bounty has provoked a call on a well-known U.S. news website for American tourists to boycott Nova Scotia.

Huffington Post commentators Camilla Fox and Chris Genovali urged readers on Thursday to email MacDonell to say they won't be spending tourist dollars in Nova Scotia until he stops "predator bounties."

Fox, founder of Project Coyote, a U.S. organization promoting "educated coexistence" with coyotes, and Genovali, executive director of the B.C.-based Raincoast Conservation Foundation, argued that Nova Scotia has no scientific justification for its cull.

With files from The Canadian Press