Dead Black Bears Banned From Cornell University – And A Maine University Mascot Is Paying Attention

As the UMaine Black Bears get ready to kick off their fall football season, they’ve got a leg up on the competition.

When it comes to mascots, that is.

The Maine college football team shares with Cornell University the black bear mascot.

Cornell hasn’t yet adopted the black bear as an official mascot, but its administrators aren’t taking any chances.

The school administration has now banned bear carcasses from the dorms at the New York school.

Last September, two Cornell students plopped a bear carcass on a table in a communal dorm kitchen and began carving it up.

They planned to make “black-bear pastrami,” as one of them described their plans later.

But soon after they put the raw meat in the freezer, a picture of the animal laid out with its hide stripped began to circulate on social media.

A complaint was lodged against the students and a police report was filed, yet they were cleared of all wrongdoing.

Now, ahead of another school year, Cornell has expressly banned the processing of wild game in residential kitchens on campus.

“Ivy League School Refuses to Let Men Be Men – Cornell Bans Processing Wild Game in Dorms After Students Butchered a Bear in Communal Kitchen to Make Black Bear Pastrami,” is the headline by Barstool Sports.

Though Cornell’s intercollegiate sports teams have no official mascot, fans have long embraced images of a bear, and a person wearing a bear suit decked out in Cornell gear is a regular sight prowling sidelines at Big Red football and basketball games.

A growling bear plays a star role in Cornell’s athletic imagery, and bears are all over school memorabilia.

A year ago, perhaps envious of UMaine’s having a black bear as a real mascot – and trying to make a black bear the official mascot also at Cornell – two students there brought the carcass of a 120-pound black bear back to their dorm, where they skinned and butchered the remains.

The two undergrads who had valid New York State hunting licenses killed the bear lawfully, so they meant well.

Go Black Bears!