Cornell University has added a new rule banning the processing of wild game in school kitchens months after two students went viral for carving up a bear in a dormitory kitchen.
“Processing wild/game animals in community kitchens is strictly prohibited,” the school’s new policy reads.
Ahead of the 2026-27 academic year, Cornell updated its Community Living Standards, which now prohibits students from processing wild animals in communal kitchens.
The school confirmed to a student newspaper that the rule’s addition was a direct response to the 2025 incident, which saw two students drag the carcass of a black bear they had killed into Cornell’s Ganędagǫ Hall for preparation.
The policy aims to provide clarity regarding what is or is not appropriate to do in a communal kitchen space.
One of those students, Aaron Chin, revealed himself as one of the butchers on a podcast a few months after the incident.
Chin, a mechanical engineering student, is also a volunteer firefighter for the Cayuga Heights Fire Department and a US army cadet and squad leader with the Army ROTC at Cornell.
Twelve days after two students processed a bear in Ganędagǫ Hall, Aaron Chin ’27 came forward as one of the hunters to detail his account of the incident and its aftermath on The MeatEater Podcast Network.
Chin shared that he and his hunting partner planned their hunt two hours from Cornell in an undisclosed state forest for the first day of early firearms season. Following the hunt on Sept. 6, Chin and his partner intended to process the bear at a friend’s place when the friend had an “emergency to tend to” that led to the plans falling through, according to Chin.
Not wanting to let the meat spoil, they headed to Ganędagǫ Hall’s communal kitchen for processing.
“We didn’t expect it to blow up. We were really diligent in reading all of the rules [and] regulations,” Chin said. “We made sure we did everything by the book because we knew we were going to be under scrutiny.”
The incident was immediately met with online backlash on Reddit and Cornell’s Sidechat, an anonymous social media platform — resulting in national news coverage and even garnering an opinion piece from The Dartmouth.
They skinned and butchered the bear on a communal table, packaged the meat, and placed it in the residence hall’s shared cold storage. Photos soon circulated on Reddit and Sidechat, prompting plenty of questions about sanitation, legality, and dorm etiquette.
The incident incurred swift social media and on-campus backlash, prompting state regulators to investigate. However, after an inspector from New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation visited the kitchen where the carving took place, the agency found no code violations, according to an NBC report.
The skinning also resulted in the kitchen being shut down for two days and fully sanitized by staff from Cornell’s Building Care Department.
The Ganędagǫ Hall kitchen, where two students skinned and processed a bear, was reopened on Sept. 9 after sanitization.
The students were not charged or disciplined because the conduct did not violate university policies in place at the time.
Cornell’s Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards also determined that the students hadn’t violated the university’s existing conduct rules.
In the viral moment that sparked the new policy,
the students legally hunted a 120-pound bear and processed the meat in the dorm kitchen, storing it in ZipLoc bags in a shared refrigerator, prompting a complaint to Cornell University Police Department.
On Sept. 6, two Cornell students killed an adult black bear in New York Department of Environmental Conservation Region 4, roughly 2 hours from campus. The hunt took place on the opening day of New York’s early firearms bear season.
While no charges were filed and the students had valid hunting licenses, the incident raised questions about processing wild animals on campus and the potential health risks associated with improperly prepared bear meat.
The student, Aaron Chin, told MeatEater’s Steve Rinella that most of the students who walked by were intrigued, and some even wanted to try some of the meat (they were hoping to make some bear pastrami).