When New York's Cornell University was being set up and the people who were involved were deciding on the various rules, regulations and guidelines that students would have to live under, apparently nobody thought to say, "Hey, we should probably put something in here prohibiting these kids from butchering a wild bear in the dormitory kitchens."
Of course, that's now what's happened, prompting Cornell to belatedly prohibit precisely that. Yes, Cornell students did butcher a bear in a dormitory kitchen. We should note that the bear was legally taken.
Cornell University has banned the butchering of wild animals in its campus community living spaces after two students stirred up controversy last fall when they hunted a black bear and brought the carcass back to their dorm kitchen for processing.
The New York university, based in a rural southcentral region of the state, changed its policy this summer as a direct result of the incident, The Cornell Daily Sun reported recently.
“The policy aims to provide clarity regarding what is or is not appropriate to do in a communal kitchen space,” a university spokesperson told the student newspaper.
The change to the Community Living Standards policy is listed under a section about keeping shared kitchens “in a clean and sanitary condition.”
“Processing wild/game animals in community kitchens is strictly prohibited,” the new addition states.
Well, now it is. This trouble may have been a'bruin for a while now, but the faculty and administration didn't see it coming until it did, at which point they decided they couldn't bear it. It's not a paws, either; the new rule is permanent.
Here's the thing: The students aren't in any trouble. It wasn't against the rules when they did it. And the bear, as noted, was taken legally.
An investigation found that the students hunted the bear legally, and the university did not discipline them, according to the report.
The incident took place last September and quickly drew backlash on campus and later online.
Aaron Chin, a junior at the time, and another unnamed student hunted the bear and then brought the carcass back to campus where they skinned and then processed the meat in a dormitory kitchen, the New York Post reports.
The two students later explained that they had intended to take the bear to a friend's house for processing, but the friend was called away at the last moment. So, they read the college's rules and regulations, discovered there was no rule against cutting up a bear in the dorm kitchen, and went ahead with it.
Here's the thing: Being as this was in New York, it would have been, necessarily, a black bear. They are downright good eating, especially when they have been eating mast (hickory nuts, acorns, and the like) and berries. College students also are notoriously short on cash, and so we shouldn't be surprised at students with the requisite skills and experience to supplement their diets with wild game. This practice has a long enough history; I got through my last year of college on venison and ramen noodles. Not the healthiest diet, but not the worst, either -although I processed all my deer off-campus. Now, Cornell students will be obliged to do likewise.
As for the two young outdoorsmen, this is an episode in their lives that will surely be un-fur-gettable.
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