Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 770: The Cornell Bear Skinner Speaks Out

Transcript

Ep. 770: The Cornell Bear Skinner Speaks Out · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: K ladies and gentlemen. It's an emergency drop of me
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: eater podcast. An emergency drop. We did one of these
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: when the guy rescued the people out of the outhouse.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: That wasn't an emergency drop, no, but it was an
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: American Hero. This is an emergency drop we have on
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: American hero Aaron Chin from Cornell University. If you're a
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: news buff, if you are a news buff, or if
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: you're a hunter, and you read your text messages a
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago, around the week of September eighth,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: I would say you probably got all kinds of people
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: texting you an article about some students from Cornell University
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: who were in trouble, out of trouble, getting in trouble
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: for having skinned a bear in their communal.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Hall at college.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Right now, I typed in Cornell black bear skinning into Google,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and I have the Cornell Daily Sun.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: I'm looking at an article there.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: I'm looking where it was covered in an op ed
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: in something called The Dartmouth and it's a person complaining
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: about them, saying that it's not what you're allowed to do,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: it's what you ought to do, and it's the real
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: lesson behind this covered in the Ithaca Voice. Cornell students
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: found skinning bear in campus, NBC News two Cornell students
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: killed bear and skinned it back at blank a long
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: spirited reddit thing, People Magazine, People dot com. Two college
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: students killed one hundred and twenty pound bear.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: I heard it was bigger. Yeah, Aaron, you don't have
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: the idea where the one twenty came from?
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: Do you?
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: No no idea? I was around around a one point fifty.
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: I know, I know how much my buddy weighs, and
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: you know I'll pick them up.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: It's just, you know, a little lighter than that.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: So wrong on dred and twenty pound bear. Here's an
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: outdoor life article. Here's a big discussion on rockslide. I
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: could go on and on, covered all over, and it
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: was one of those things that everybody sends me. The
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: article about the two kids at Cornell who were in
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: trouble or we're not in trouble for having dared kill
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: a bear on campus, or could not kill a beart
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: on campus, but kill a beart in process it in
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: a communal space on campus. And then as I followed
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: the story along for a couple of days, it turns
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: out that police game wardens the student handbook. It turns
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: out no one could find anything that was actually wrong.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: I said to Krana, said, we have to talk to
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: these guys. With Diane to talk to these guys. So
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: here we have one of the butchers, Aaron Chin from Cornell.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: We're gonna hear. We're gonna hear his story. We're gonna
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: hear about what it's like to all of a sudden
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: be part of a national news story, what it's like
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: to probably be real scared for a minute and then
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: feel relieved, and then what's the what's the next hunt plan?
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: But like, first, let's let's start off.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: So you're at Cornell University, you're from You're from San Diego, California. Correct, Yeah,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: what give me your hunting background? How did you get
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: started hunting?
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: So I didn't start until the very like tail end
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: of high school. I'm my parents, we we we never
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: really did that. We weren't really an outdoorsy family. But
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: that was something I was super into as a kid.
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: I'd read Bushcraft manuals and I'd watched these survival shows.
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: So I started shooting and shooting archery, thinking like early
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: middle school and whatnot. So I was that was always
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: kind of in the back of the mind. I shot
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: Olympic archery for the longest time. I started teaching that
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: performance archery, which primarily catered towards I mean that's where
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: the money is in the.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Archer's performance archery.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: Mean, it's it's just the bow shop I worked at.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Oh I thought I made a discipline called performance archery. Yeah, yeah,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: an archery shop.
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And a lot of the guys were big bow hunters.
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: I was super curious, and I started shooting traditional archery
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: with kind of the hopes of being able to to
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: to hunt traditionally with with just a with a with
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: a bear bo And yeah, I went out a couple
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: of times in San Diego. Hunting in San Diego is
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: really difficult, all all public land. It's it's kind of
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: one of those things where you've got to get lucky
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: right time. There's not a lot of water there. So
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: I went out for turkey once and then and then
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: deer another time, but pretty much very little success, very
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: little experience. That's that's why part of the reason I
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: chose to to go to to Cornell One besides.
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: That really get engineering school. But you know, the proximity
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: of Wood.
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: I saw the deer Management program, and I'm like, I
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: can I can kind of learn all learn all the
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: skills and live live the lot, learn all the skills
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: that I wanted to as a kid. And now that
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: there's there's forests and there's there's state lands to do that.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, there's a real Like we spent some
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: time on the campus recording some podcasts a couple of
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: years ago, and there's like a hunter's community.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: There's like a hunter's community at Cornell m Yeah.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: And so when you came out there, you guys, how
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: did you become aware of Uh.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: So you're junior, third year? Is that right? Correct?
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: How did you become aware of spring black bear season?
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Like? Like what did you dig into?
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Like how did you how did it hit you that, like,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: hey man, let's go out and let's go out and
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: do a little bear hunting.
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: You and your body saw it on the DC website,
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: you know, reading it through all the rules and the
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: seasons you can and and the biggest thing is when
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: I first got here.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Sorry not in spring bear season. Fall I'm sorry, fall
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: bear season.
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: Like you get everyone gets a black bear tag with
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: the with all their with all their accoutrements and and
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: and so when you.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Buy a hunting license, your issue to black bear tag.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: Everyone gets a black Bear tag like a regular. Yeah.
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: So I was like, this, this could this sounds really cool.
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: And I saw I saw a recipe somewhere like like
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: black bear PASTRAMI I don't know where and eyes like that.
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: That sounds delicious. I mean, I love a.
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: Good on Ryan, like you know what, two and two
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: let's maybe really cool. I was reading them and at
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: this point I've got a rifle, so I was like, well,
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: this could be like a very realistic, realistic thing.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: So I started looking looking into it.
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: And it's the first it's the first big game season
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: of the of the year. So we're like, all right,
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: you know, tests aren't going too crazy, academics are pretty chill.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: Let's let's let's get her down. Let's figure it out.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: And and you and your hunting partner, you guys go
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: out and you guys are hunting public land?
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Is that right? Yes?
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: Public land?
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: And how did you how did you kind of hit
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: on Like here's the spot, here's what we're gonna try,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: here's where we're gonna hunt.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: Like lay that out for me.
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: A lot of a lot of research, a lot of
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: e scout in so I'd look at the d C
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: kind of they have the bear harvest reports where so
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: I was looking at the regions where they have the
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: highest you know, uh bears reported and for one hundred
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: square miles from there, I look, I look what's closest
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: to the university because we're full time students essentially, so
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: where's the closest state forest.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: That we can we can hunt?
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: And from there reading articles, figuring out like, well, they're
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: going to be they're gonna be berry trying to get
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: fat for the winter. So I honed in on a
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: on a piece of piece of state forest and I
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: started looking for water features. That was the biggest thing,
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: swamps where where I think we're like berries and and
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: and shrubbery that they'd be foraging on. And then we
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: went there Friday. We we right after classes, we went
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: out and the first thing, yeah, we went out. We
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: we we scouted, and then the next day we we
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: kind of set up and figured it out.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: And when you guys set up, you and your hunting body,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: when you guys set up, did you guys set up
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: in blinds or were you trying to like still hunt.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: You're trying to do a stand hunt, like what was
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: your strategy?
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: Still hunting?
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: So the day before on Friday, we found like fresh bear,
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: bear shit and tracks everywhere.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: So we're like, all right, this.
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: Is the spot we're gonna bed down the next morning,
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: because you know, we're just season hadn't open open yet,
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: we're just looking around. So essentially there was a little
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: like a grove or like a like a there's a
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: little clearing and there was a there's some shrubs in
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: the middle of it. So that's where we saw kind
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: of like paths and they're still uneaten berry.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: So we decided the next morning, you know, you're looking
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: at an active feeding area, okay, yep, And you guys
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: set up and it was that and it was the
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: was it the first day of the season that you
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: guys got a bear?
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: Yep? First day okay, like like like nine o'clock. But
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: we didn't get it.
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: In that clearing, we heard we heard scratching and and
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: like climbing in a pine grove about like one hundred
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: yards to the side. So we moved out to there.
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: We waited in our first position, we moved out. We
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: sat there for a good amount and then we we
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: lost track of it. There was a there's a pine grove,
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: and there was a.
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: Hill, like a really steep hill.
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: So we sat there for a good thirty forty five
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: minutes and we we stopped hearing the scratching. So we
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: thought to ourselves, a maybe maybe the bare clover clover
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: leafed around back to back to that original clearing. So
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: we go back and and we don't see anything. We're like,
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: all right, let's let's pack up. We'll go back out
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: in the in the afternoon. And just as we're rounding
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: a corner, my buddy he sees it.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: I don't. I don't.
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: I'm behind this corner, so I just see him, you know,
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: his eyes go go full killer.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: He chambers around, and I'm.
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: Like and I and I cover my ears because because
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: we've got a pretty good kind of know each other's
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: body langers, and I knew he wasn't he wasn't just
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: looking looking through And yeah, he pops off a shot
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: and we we he gets it was it.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Did you have a big track and job or did
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: you find it pretty quick?
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: Really really quick?
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: It was like a forty yard mac shot.
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: It was pretty close.
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: And then we're shooting one hundred and eighty green point
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: three o eight, So that that thing dropped pretty pretty fast.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Okay, now here's where things get interesting. You guys. You
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: guys live on campus, correct.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, you don't have an apartment, you don't have house
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: you rent, you live on campus.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Had you even.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Had you guys got around of being like, well, here's
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: what we'll do if we get one. Or were you
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: just not even thinking about that yet and you're just
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: gonna take it as it comes, or did you have
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: like a if we get one, here's the butchering plan.
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: We thought about everything, we were and yeah, we're gonna
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: go to a buddy's place. But last minute, I think
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: he had some some emergency to tend to. So the
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: place we were going to do it closed off and
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: we were really paranoid that, you know, that the meat
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: was boil wanted to get it cooled as fast as possible.
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: We opened it up, but just to just to get
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: it all processed in a fridge as fast as possible.
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: So we're like, well, our one when one place was gone,
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: so might as well do it there.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: And it was in the morning. I think it was
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: around like ten o'clock.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, so explain what this place is where you take it,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Like what on campus?
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: Like what is the place you bring the bear to?
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: Just there's like a communal kitchen on the on the
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: first floor of kind of the residential building. It's like
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: a really it's like a really really open space. There's
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: like a study tables and whatnot. But it looks more
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: like a like one of those those modern like a
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: like a like a coffee shop, a lot of space
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: and then and then concrete floors because we you know,
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: carpet would just be a dick move.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: But it's meant for people to do their cooking. Okay,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: So presumably there's a big table in there, and you guys,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: you guys bring in you bring in the bear on
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: to the table. Correct who's around when you do this, Like,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: like who's in the room.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: There's not a lot of people.
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: There are a couple of people studying, but no one
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: really comes up and makes a big deal of it.
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: It's in the morning, Saturday mornings, so people are still
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: probably a beg humeover and whatnot. So we had a
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: couple of people just throughout our two three hours of processing.
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: They'd walk by people would you know, try to take
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: pictures or like just don't have us in there, and
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: most most people were super curious, like, hey, we'd love
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: to try something that's that's really interesting. We're explaining i mean,
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: the whole idea of stewardship and whatnot, and we were
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: aware it was going to be pretty graphic, but just explaining, hey,
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: this is this, none of this goes to waste. And
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: for the most part it was you know, people were
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: really really curious low foot traffic especially, and that's why
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: we chose to like, all right, we can.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: We thought we'd get you know, yelled at by an
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: r A.
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: Maybe, but we we didn't expect it to blow up
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: to the extent of which it did. A.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So when you when you thought, okay, we're going
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: to go into the communal are we're going to go
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: into the dorm kitchen and we're going to process our bear,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: you weren't having conversations like hey, this could lead to
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: very serious trouble and all this news attention. Like you
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: were just kind of doing what made the most sense
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: in the moment, and you figured anything that came up
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: would just you just be able to resolve it through conversation.
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: HM. We think we both thought that, you know, maybe
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: it'd be a like a little blurb, you know, people
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: talked about it. It was like, oh, that's that's kind
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: of that's kind of odd. But we didn't expect for
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: it to blow up. We we were really diligent in
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: reading all of the rules, you know, regulations, Like we
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: made sure we did everything by the book because we knew,
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: you know, we're gonna be under scrutiny. So hey, we're
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: gonna we're gonna clean up. We're gonna use you know,
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: bleach lysol wipes and whatnot. We're gonna we're gonna kinda
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: keep it, you know, public image where no no blasting
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: heavy metal or or or or music at all.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: We're pretty we're thinking about that.
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: We didn't know it was gonna cause that much of
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: a backlash a day later.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: But you knew it, Like but you knew the dorm
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: rules and the campus rules, and there's no thing saying
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: like thou shalt not process a big game animal in
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: community kitchen.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: Yep, nothing nothing that said against it. You know.
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: We I even you know, labeled my my meat bags too,
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: because that's what they wanted. Later on, that would bite
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: me in the ass because people would be like, oh,
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: we we figured it out.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: You know where you know people get this kid?
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: Oh, because you're storing it in a communal freezer.
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: Kay, at the time being before I could get it
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: out to people off campus.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Indeed, Yeah, got it all right.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: So Saturday comes and goes, you guys get your bear,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: you get the bear processed, and then it winds up
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: being that Sunday night. What happens Sunday night, someone someone
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: finally says, I have to take a stand and report
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: these young gentlemen for having cleaned a bear in the dorm.
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: Something like that. So there's a there's a local Facebook group.
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: It's called I think Ithaca or Tompkin County Scanner Scanner Beats.
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: It's this one one guy who's just constantly monitoring like
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: police and fire radio. I used to be a volunteer firefighter.
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: So this guy like we're on en route to a
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: call and this guy pings up. It's like, this is crazy,
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: this is I think it gets like an old retired guy.
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: So he he Someone sends me a screenshot of the
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: page and like, huh, that's that's really interesting, and I'm
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: I'm I'm like shopping or something I'm not even on campus,
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: and they're like, CUPD is there.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: There are our police department.
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: Oh ho.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: The guy that monitors the scanner is saying, hey, law
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: enforcement is at Cornell And that's how you get word
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: that law enforcement is there.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they're like they're acting endico. They're investigating back up
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: this klon.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: And they're like, I wonder if this has to do
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: with me.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: I was like, oh yeah, they said in the report
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: bear skinny. I'm like, what, everything's packaged up? It's everything
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: super cool.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's how you became aware of this?
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was like, huh. Interesting. I go to sleep
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: Monday morning, it's like everywhere.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh no, so that night you didn't go
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: down there that night to see what's going on?
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: No?
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: No, Because I was walking back after done shopping. They
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: were you know, there's nothing there. It's a Christine kitchen,
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: so we we want and there's there's there's.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Nothing like light splash and an ambulances and okay, okay,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: So you wake up Monday and then what's going on?
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: It's all over like so I'm not I'm not sure.
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: If you're familiar with side chat, A lot of universities
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: have like a regional like social media and it's a
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: lot of the keyboard warriors and whatnot, and people have
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: started circulating pictures of the of the you know, the
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: bear of us processing it. We're people the day before
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: came up to take you know, ask you if they
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: could take pictures. We're like, we weren't sure about that,
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: like we know people were gonna do it. Anyways, there's like, hey,
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: just don't put us in it, and yeah, and then
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: it was it just it just overnight, just became a
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: huge sensation.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: And at what point did someone want to come talk
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: to you? Though? Like what they what point did law
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: enforcement want to have a word with you?
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: I think it was.
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: Might have been Sunday night, Actually I don't. They're just like, hey,
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: we want to clear clear clear the clear the error
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: because they saw my my net idea on the package
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: meet and whatnot, like hey, we want to we just
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: wanted to hear yeah. And then and then I was like, oh,
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: I didn't think too much about it. And then Monday,
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: the whole like the world figured out. But PD was
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: super supportive. A lot of them are on the Deer
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: Management program. The guy officer I spoke with before. I
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: had a three hundred pound black bear on his game camera,
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: So who's talking about go hunting and whatnot. So they
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: just wanted to hear what was going on because I
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: you know.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: So they look into it and I read that like
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: the game boardens are like, he's got a license. It's
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: bear season. It's a legal bear. The police departments like
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: these guys doing anything wrong. We didn't violate the student handbook.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: But it seems like in the media covers there's like
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: somewhat of an expect there's somewhat of an expectation or
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: sense of surprise that there shouldn't be repercussions for this.
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's I guess it's just something that not everyone's
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: familiar with.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: You know a lot of people there's the the rumor.
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: That it was a cub that was that was that
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: was the big thing, and people people, people started freaking out.
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: People didn't even know it was season. Like if you
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: look at on the online forums, people are you in and.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: Like, well, no, it's legal. There people couldn't fathom.
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: That we drove like two hours to our to our
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: spot and drove back. There's just a lot of a
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: lot of internet discussion got it.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: So yeah, so people, yeah, like they're not educated about
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: the whole thing and something. They're eager that something must
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: be wrong here. M yeah, and that did did the
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: campus like who would be who's like the campus authority?
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: So did the campus authority at some point in time
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: coming to ask you any questions or say like how
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: did you clean up?
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: Or where's the bear?
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: Now?
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: None of that happened.
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, none of that happened at one point because of
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: the news coverage. I think when the students support people
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: reached out. They're like, hey, we're here. We know you're
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: probably you know, if you're going through a stressful time,
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: we're here. It's like it's a game if I if
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: I if I if I, if I hang myself or something.
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: They don't want to get to. But they were, you know,
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: university was super. No one said anything.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: I mean, we didn't. We didn't. We didn't do anything wrong.
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: I heard through like that, you know, dean and vice
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: princident president was contacted at some point, but they're like,
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: you know, I mean, we were we were just we're
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: just we're just doing what we were doing, you know, So.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: We reached out. I don't I don't.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know why. I don't want to name. I
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: don't want to say who. We reached out. We reached
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: out to contacts we have. That's not be hard to solve.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: We reached out to contacts we have at Cornell. The
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: contacts we have at Cornell had were just thrilled by.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: It's so great to know that there's still kids that
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: know how to do this kind of stuff. Just goes
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: to show the caliber of the students we have. You know,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: someone's like, oh, they they might be interested in my
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: program at the school, and they're like, but I don't.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: We didn't want to didn't want to give names out,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: so it was kind of like, well, we'd have to
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: check and make sure it's okay, Like I can't just
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: send you their contact information. But it was like, no
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: one know, No one that that Krinn communicated with, our producer,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: no one that Kriinn communicated with expressed anything other than like, oh,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: that's cool, let me see if I can find them
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: for you. Uh and so you know, all's well, that
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: ends well, but let me ask you this, Like let's
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: say you know, later in the fall, Okay, you get
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: a deer m do you do the deer. Do you
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: process the deer in the communal kitchen or have you
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: had enough?
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: Hell no, My buddy is like a bunch of people
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: opened their doors. They're like they saw that.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: What happened.
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: They're they're like, all right, all right, all right, You're
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: a lot of people open their doors. I'm super great.
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: People reached out and they to the organizations that I've known,
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: I'm affiliated with, and they.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: Hate there were We're always here. I mean, of course
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: the Keyboard Warriors.
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: And the and the Basement people have been been overwhelmingly supportive.
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: I mean we were talking about love labovo Ornithology last year.
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: They they let they were gracious, and Mary Margaret it's
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: been super helpful with helping me clean my my my
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: schools with germistic beatles and professor Keith Timball on Facebook
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: kind of really respected figure defending you.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: Know, I'd hear construction workers too.
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: I remember when it was with when I was high
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: point talking about it, I'm like, wow, okay, this is
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: this is the talk of the town. And for the
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: most part, people in the real world have been pretty
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: pretty supportive.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's not that so you're not going to
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: go back to the dorm. But it's not because you're scared,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: it's because you got better options.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, pretty pretty much. And then you know, I don't
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: want part two happening. I mean that's kind of asking
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: for it.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, I got you. So would you say
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: that in hindsight?
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Do you feel that in hindsight are you glad you
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: did what you did because it advanced this conversation or
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: do you feel like it like like it put.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: This thing out there to test and you kind of.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Learn from the experience and it gave you sort of
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: a snapshot of you know, your university, your community. Right,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: that's one approach, or you could have the approach of
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: staying In hindsight, I really could have done without all
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: the distraction.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: I shouldn't have gone process my bear at the dorm.
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: I'd say a little bit of both.
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: I think I should have been a little bit more.
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: I should have I should have prepped for the worst
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: and and realized that some people would you know, would
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: would would would blow up. I didn't think it would
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: become that that large. And definitely if we probably do
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: in the woods next time, but also that like looking back,
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: no regrets for what we did, how we conducted ourselves,
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: like the fact that we thought about the implications and
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: we were we went through were very considerate of just
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: our etiquette and kind of how we conducted ourselves when
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: we were processing.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: I think there's a little a little bit of both.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: So yep, I'll tell you why I like you, guys.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: It's not you cut that bear up in the dorm.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: What I like about it is you come. You're from
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: somewhere else, you come to New York, you find out
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: there's a bear season, You do the work, you scout,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: you spend time online, you do the research, you make calls.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: A lot of guys would be like, you're never going
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: to get a bear. Why even bother, I'm not gonna
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: go out. You're never gonna get a bear, blah blah blah.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: You ignore all that and you go out and you
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: had success. That's cool. Love to see it, man, like
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: your American hunting elbow grease dude. So I love it.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: I'm glad. I was so thrilled to see as I
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: followed the story along, I was so thrilled to see
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: that nothing bad having you guys. I was thrilled to
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: see the way people are, like, hey, man, this kind
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: of stuff should or some people in our world or like.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: This kind of stuff should be celebrated.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Like you know, they're they're producing food for themselves or
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: taking responsibility. They're they're staying in accordance with the law.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: It advanced the conversation. Everybody got a little smarter about everything.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I don't think I'm going out on a
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: limb when I say you're an American hero.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: I appreciate it. See he's the world.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: True American hero in fact, Aaron Chin, thank you for
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: coming out, man. I love hearing your story and tell
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: congratulations to your to your hunting partner, the trigger Man,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: and I'm glad for you guys, and I can't wait
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: to hear about your next hunting adventure.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: Thank you. I appreciate it.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: Well, I did appreciate it. Uh, good luck to your studies.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: You've got a couple more years ago than you're going
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: to be entering the engineering field, so that's good.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: Okay, Thank you man. Good luck with school.