ANCHORAGE, Alaska: The National Park Service proposed a rule banning bear hunters in Alaska from using bait, such as pastries, dog food or bacon grease, when hunting within Alaska's national preserves.

The practice of using bait has been criticized as cruel by animal rights supporters, and the park service said that the new proposal would "lower the risk that bears will associate food at bait stations with humans and become conditioned to eating human-produced foods."

After a case was brought by conservation and animal rights groups, in September, US District Court Judge Sharon Gleason found issue with a 2020 Trump administration-era rule that lifted restrictions on sport hunting and trapping in national preserves in Alaska, including bear baiting.

But she did not set the rule aside and sent it back to the agency. Appeals in the case are currently pending.

Peter Christian, spokesperson of the National Park Service for the Alaska region, said the assistant secretary of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, last February, directed the park service "to initiate a rule-making process to reconsider the factual, legal and policy conclusions in the 2020 Alaska Hunting and Trapping rule which authorized several controversial sport hunting practices."

The park service said that a similar ban on bear baiting, which came into force in 2015 during the Obama administration, was rescinded by the 2020 rule.

The proposed new rule also would reinstate prohibitions that were in place under the 2015 rule "on methods of harvest that are not compatible with generally accepted notions of 'sport' hunting," it added.

In a statement, Sara Amundson, president of the Humane Society Legislative Fund, said the new proposal was "a victory for Alaska's iconic wildlife species."