Cornell Bans Bear Butchering After Students Process Animal in Dorm Kitchen

Cornell University has updated its campus housing rules to explicitly bar students from processing wild game in shared kitchens, a change made months after two students drew widespread attention for butchering a bear inside a dormitory kitchen.

“Processing wild/game animals in community kitchens is strictly prohibited,” the university’s newly added policy states.

Cornell confirmed to a student newspaper that the policy was introduced in direct response to the 2025 episode, when two students brought the carcass of a black bear they had killed into Ganędagǫ Hall and prepared it in the residence hall’s kitchen.

One of the students, Aaron Chin, later identified himself as one of the people involved during an appearance on a podcast several months after the incident.

Speaking about what happened, Chin said he and his hunting partner, also a Cornell student, originally intended to take the bear from hunting grounds about two hours away to a friend’s house for processing. According to Chin, that plan changed when the friend had an emergency and could no longer make the home available.

Chin said the pair reviewed Cornell’s rules before bringing the bear meat onto campus, believing at the time that they were not violating university policy.

“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.”

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.

News Outlet contacted Cornell and Chin for further comment.