Beef jerky can be a delicious treat. But a recent report illustrates why you should be cautious about biting into a piece of homemade jerky made from wild bear meat—it just might be teeming with parasitic worms. Last week, federal and local health officials in North Carolina detailed an unusual outbreak of Trichinella roundworms in 2024 traced back to undercooked jerky from the same infected bear. At least three people were likely sickened by the cursed jerky, one of whom ended up hospitalized with severe illness. Though such cases are rare, they can be entirely prevented by cooking bear and other game meat to the recommended internal temperature, the authors say. “Low-cost safety measures and prevention efforts regarding safe wild game preparation are needed to avoid future outbreaks,” they wrote in their paper, published June 24 in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. A bear of a time The outbreak was first detected in November 2024 by a clinician who treated the hospitalized patient and notified health officials. The Graham County Health Department and North Carolina Division of Public Health then conducted an investigation. The patient had killed a bear at the start of the hunting season in October. The person froze half of the meat as various cuts and prepared the rest into jerky; they then shared the jerky with five other people.