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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.
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.
One of those students, Aaron Chin, revealed himself as one of the butchers on a podcast a few months after the incident.
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Cornell introduced the new ban following an incident involving two students and a bear carcass in a campus dorm kitchen. (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.
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Students on Libe Slope at the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, US, on Tuesday, April 11, 2023. (Bing Guan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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Fox News Digital contacted Cornell and Chin for further comment.
