A coyote attack in Nova Scotia this week is fueling demands for a bounty on the animals, which began when a Toronto folk singer was killed by coyotes last fall.

Sue Sinclair was attacked by a coyote Thursday morning in Maitland, N.S., a community about 100 kilometres southwest of Halifax. The incident happened near a bridge popular among both locals and tourists for viewing tidal bores.

Sinclair was standing near the tourist centre at the Gosse Bridge when a coyote approached and attacked her.

"It came at me and grabbed a hold of my leg," Sinclair, told CTV Atlantic. "It didn't get a good lock on it and I kicked it away."

"I yelled. I tried to be as aggressive as I could."

The bite did not break the skin and Sinclair says her leg is bruised. She says the animal should be put down.

"My biggest concern is that it was so aggressive," she said. "If a younger person or a smaller person was out here, they could really be hurt."

Nova Scotia Natural Resources Minister John MacDonell was briefed Thursday night on the incident.

There have been calls for a coyote bounty or cull since last fall, when Toronto folk musician Taylor Mitchell was killed by a pack of coyotes in a Cape Breton park. Mitchell, 19, was taken to hospital after she was attacked by a pack of coyotes while hiking alone in Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

She was in Nova Scotia to begin a concert tour of the East Coast.

MacDonell told CTV he is not ruling out a bounty on coyotes in the province, and has asked his staff to look into the idea and speak to officials in Saskatchewan, which implemented a coyote bounty in November.

But MacDonnell says there are still a number of questions that need to be answered before making a decision, such as whether a bounty would make it possible to "eradicate the problem coyotes."

Earlier this week, local media reported that a Cape Breton innkeeper recently found a bloody coyote carcass strung up in front of a stone marking the inn's address.

Earlene Busch believes the carcass could be connected to a letter she wrote to the Cape Breton Post last November defending coyotes. Her letter was a response to mounting calls for a coyote cull.

With a report from CTV Atlantic