Former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is back in the headlines — not for suspending his campaign last week and endorsing Republican Donald Trump, nor for his recent admission that he was the one who had left a dead bear cub in Central Park as a joke a decade ago.
This time, the macabre spotlight is refocused on Kennedy, the 70-year-old nephew of the late 35th president, because of a resurfaced 2012 interview in which his daughter shared he had once used a chain saw to cut off a whale’s head to bring it home, reportedly to study.
According to Town & Country magazine, Kennedy once heard that a dead whale had washed up on Squaw Island in Hyannis Port and “ran down to the beach with a chainsaw, cut off the whale’s head, and then bungee-corded it to the roof of the family minivan for the five-hour haul back to Mount Kisco, New York.”
“Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” Kick Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy’s daughter, told the magazine then. “We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.”
It is unclear why the 2012 interview regained traction this weekend, though it comes just weeks after Kennedy admitted in a social media video that he was behind the bear cub carcass left in Central Park in 2014. In May, Kennedy also revealed that doctors had discovered a parasitic worm in his brain in 2010, though his campaign did not elaborate or provide medical records that could confirm his claim.
Kennedy’s latest bizarre story involving a dead animal has prompted a push by one environmental group to look into whether Kennedy committed felonies if he did indeed saw off a whale’s head and strap it to the roof of his car.
In a letter Monday to government officials, the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund requested that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) open an investigation into whether Kennedy violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.
It is illegal to possess any part of an animal, dead or alive, protected under either statute, the group wrote, noting that several whale species in the Atlantic Ocean are included and that “continued possession of any whale skull” would represent an ongoing violation of the law.
“Furthermore, Mr. Kennedy’s apparent transport of the marine mammal skull from Massachusetts to New York, and therefore across state lines, also represented a felony violation of the Lacey Act, one of the earliest wildlife conservation laws enacted by United States in 1900,” Brett Hartl, national political director for the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, wrote in the letter.
The Arizona-based group endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president last month and was one of several environmental groups that denounced Kennedy’s candidacy earlier this year.
“There are good reasons why it is illegal for any person to collect or keep parts of any endangered species. Most importantly, vital research opportunities are lost when individuals scavenge a wildlife carcass and interfere with the work of scientists,’ the letter continued. “This is particularly true of marine mammals, which are some of the most difficult wildlife species in the world to study. Indeed, some beaked whales are so difficult to observe that the only way scientists have learned about them is when dead ones wash ashore.”
Representatives for Kennedy and for the NOAA did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday. In an email to The Washington Post, Hartl said that if Kennedy had discarded the whale skull in the trash, resulting in the destruction of the evidence, “then he would likely be insulated and not subject to criminal or civil penalties.”
“We are asking for an investigation because it is an unknown and important to resolve. The story made it seem like this was normal behavior for him, so he may also possess additional illegally collected wildlife parts,” Hartl added, referring to the recent video in which Kennedy described collecting a bear carcass and leaving it in New York City’s most popular park.
Kennedy’s campaign was also riddled with plenty of controversies that were not related to animals. Last month, Kennedy faced accusations of sexual assault from a woman who later told The Post that he contacted her by text to privately apologize to her for his behavior.
“I’ve said this from the beginning: I am not a church boy,” Kennedy said on a podcast in response to the allegations. “… I have so many skeletons in my closet that if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world.”