HYANNIS PORT, MA — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the youngest presidential candidate and recently appointed to Donald Trump’s transition team, is making headlines again for another bizarre animal story.
The Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund is calling on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to launch an investigation into Kennedy after a story told by his daughter resurfaced.
In 2012, Town & Country interviewed Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy, who said that in 1994 a whale carcass washed ashore near the family property in Hyannis Port on Cape Cod. Kennedy said that when her father heard the whale was out on the shore, he decapitated the whale with a chainsaw, then tied it to the roof of the family van and drove it back to New York.
“Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would run against the windows, which was the most disgusting thing in the world,” Kennedy said in the interview. “We all had plastic bags over our heads with holes cut in them for our mouths, and people on the highway would give us the middle finger, but that was just normal everyday life for us.”
The Center for Biological Diversity hopes NOAA will launch an investigation to determine whether Kennedy violated federal wildlife protection laws.
“RFK Jr.’s decapitation of a dead whale was both bizarre and illegal, and any serious environmental lawyer would know better,” said Brett Hartl, national policy director for the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund. “Kennedy may think the rules don’t apply to him because of his name and privilege, but if he had an ounce of integrity left, he would turn over that whale skull and all other illegally collected wildlife parts to the authorities. If he doesn’t, NOAA law enforcement should launch an investigation and possibly bring charges against him.”
This story comes a few weeks after New York City residents solved a nearly decade-old mystery: How did a dead bear cub end up in Central Park next to an abandoned bicycle? Kennedy Jr. claimed responsibility for dumping the animal’s body in Central Park nearly 10 years ago.
