Cornell University recently implemented a new directive explicitly forbidding the processing of wild game in its kitchen facilities. This policy change came on the heels of a media buzz triggered by two students who famously decided to butcher a bear within the confines of a dorm kitchen.
The university’s updated regulations now clearly state, “Handling wild or game animals for processing is absolutely banned in communal kitchens.”
The revelation of the rule came after the university acknowledged to a student newspaper that it stemmed directly from a 2025 scenario where two individuals brought a bear carcass they had hunted into Ganędagǫ Hall, a campus dorm, to prepare it.
Aaron Chin, one of the involved students, openly identified himself as part of the bear incident duo on a podcast released several months post the event.
The prohibition was enacted post the unusual situation where two students processed a bear carcass in a dormitory kitchen at Cornell. (iStock)
Chin explained that he and his hunting partner, a fellow Cornell student, had planned on bringing the bear from the hunting grounds located roughly two hours from the school to a friend’s house to prepare it, but claimed the friend had an emergency that left them unable to use his home.
Chin also said that before bringing the bear meat on campus, he and his partner ensured they weren’t breaking any campus rules.
“We were really diligent in reading all of the rules [and] regulations,” Chin told the MeatEater podcast in September. “We made sure we did everything by the book because we knew we were going to be under scrutiny.”
A man walks through the Cornell University campus on November 3, 2023 in Ithaca, New York. The school recently updated its campus laws to ban the processing of wild game after a pair of students carved a black bear carcass in a school kitchen in 2025. (Matt Burkhartt/Getty Images)
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.
Students on Libe Slope at the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, US, on Tuesday, April 11, 2023. (Bing Guan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
News Media contacted Cornell and Chin for further comment.