A new Trump administration rule allows hunters to bait bears on federal lands in Alaska with bacon, doughnuts, meat scraps or other human foods typically used to help kill the trophy animals at close range.

Opponents say the practice will cause bears to be more aggressive around humans, and allege that the rule change is a political gift to largely rightwing trophy hunters. The rule replaces a 2024 Biden administration rule that banned the practice, and environmental groups criticized the move as “indefensible and inexcusable”.

“We are discouraged to see this rule come back, specifically the bear baiting piece which is cruel and dangerous, not only to wildlife but the public as well,” said Drew Robertson, senior regulatory specialist for Humane World for Animals.

The US interior department on Friday published the rule on the federal register, and it will take effect in mid-November. It marks the latest in a series of rule changes at the state and federal levels since 2023 that allow trophy hunters to use what critics say are barbaric and unethical practices to kill animals.

Doug Burgum, the secretary of the interior, wrote in a press release that the latest rule was developed in response to demands by Alaska residents and it was a “commonsense framework and gives Alaskans a stronger voice in decisions affecting the lands, wildlife and traditions they know best”.

The federal rule does not list specific foods that are allowed, but it defers to state rules, which allow for baiting, and hunters typically use “the cheapest and most effective food, which is high fat and high sugar”, said Nicholas Arrivo, a managing attorney at Animal Protection Law. Hunters typically put food in a steel drum or garbage can, monitor the bait, then set up from a nearby blind from which they kill the bear at short range, Arrivo said.

The practice raises broader ethical questions around the spirit and intent of sport hunting.

“It is a more extreme practice than the hunting traditions that people think of, and many hunters would not see this as a fair chase,” Robertson said.

The move comes after Alaska and federal officials in recent years started allowing sport hunters to hunt big game with controversial practices, like shooting bears from helicopters, shooting swimming caribou from motor boats, killing wolf pups in their dens and using artificial lights to draw bears out of the dens to kill them. The bear baiting is not highly unusual as about a dozen states allow similar practices, but more do not.

The rule change came at the direction of Donald Trump in an executive order, called Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential, which was issued in his second administration’s early days.

“It was a priority for the president … and he included direction to reissue this rule, which says that there is a political motivation, not something that seems to be derived from careful consideration,” Robertson said.

This baiting rule has a long history. A ban was first put in place by Barack Obama’s administration, then undone by the first Trump administration. Litigation upheld the Obama rule and overturned the Trump rule. The Biden administration then reimplemented the rule in 2024, largely because science shows that the practice will make bears more aggressive, and put park visitors’ lives at risk.

Though the Trump administration has said the rule was designed to give the state more control over the land, the lands are federal and Congress created the federal land program to give the federal government decision-making power, not state governments, Arrivo said. He said it “is anathema to federal land management goals … of preserving wildlife diversity”.

Though no decision has yet been made about a lawsuit, Arrivo said the interior department’s decision to fully scrap the 2024 rule that underwent a more robust scientific process “doesn’t smell right and raises questions about the legality of this rule”.