Two students skinned and butchered a legally hunted black bear in a campus dorm kitchen at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, prompting outcry but no charges, officials said.
On Thursday, Sept. 11, university and state officials confirmed the hunt and the on-campus processing but said no laws were broken.
NBC News reported the pair killed the 120-pound black bear over the weekend and brought the carcass into a residence hall to process it on Saturday, Sept. 6.
The students held valid New York State hunting licenses, a Cornell spokesperson said, adding that a police report was filed after a complaint late Sunday night; no charges have been filed.
The State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) sent an investigator Sunday, Sept. 7, and found no code violations.
The Cornell Daily Sun identified the location as Ganędagǫ: Hall, where a communal first-floor kitchen was subsequently closed “until further notice.”
Images of the skinned bear on a counter spread on Reddit and Sidechat, drawing both backlash and praise.
Some commenters questioned whether the animal was a cub, noting that shooting cubs is illegal in the southern zone, and raised sanitation concerns about butchering in a shared space, noting bear meat can carry trichinosis.
DEC said the bear was taken in Region 4, which includes Delaware, Otsego, Albany, Columbia, Greene, Montgomery, Rensselaer, Schoharie, and Schenectady counties, placing the kill outside Tompkins County, home to Cornell and Ithaca.
