Claims Robert F Kennedy ‘decapitated whale’ after sick lifeless bear cub admission
Robert F Kennedy Jr is being probed for allegedly beheading a dead whale after he recently admitted dumping a dead bear cub in the woods.
The ex-US presidential candidate has been accused of also taking the decapitated head home with him 20 years ago, according to the nephew of assassinated President John F. Kennedy who claimed National Marine Fisheries Services had recently contacted him about the incident.
Speaking at an event in Glendale, Arizona, at the weekend the 70-year-old claimed the inquiry into him amounted to “the weaponisation of our government against political opponents”, adding: “I received a letter from the National Marine Fisheries Institute saying that they were investigating me for collecting a whale specimen 20 years ago.
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In response, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – which oversees the fisheries services – said: “It is a long-standing NOAA practice not to comment on open investigations.”
Talk of the alleged whale decapitation first surfaced when Kennedy’s daughter, Kathleen Kennedy, told a magazine in 2012 that her father used a chainsaw on the carcass of a dead whale when she was a child, reports Mirror. After beheading it, she claimed her dad tied it to the roof of the family car and drove home.
Kathleen said: “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. 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.”
Whales have been protected in the States under the Marine Mammal Protection Act since 1972 and it’s now believed the Centre for Biological Diversity Action Fund contacted the authorities.
“RFK Jr cutting off the head of a dead whale was both bizarre and illegal, and any serious environmental attorney would know better,” wrote Brett Hartl, the group’s national political director.
“Kennedy may think that his name and privilege mean the rules don’t apply to him, but if he had a shred of integrity left, he’d surrender this whale skull and any other illegally collected wildlife parts to the authorities. If he doesn’t, NOAA law enforcement should open an investigation and potentially bring charges against him.”
At the rally on Saturday Kennedy said after learning he was being probed that he wrote a letter to NOAA accusing the group of killing wildlife with “giant offshore wind farms off the East Coast”.
It comes after he recently admitted to dumping a dead bear cub in New York City’s Central Park more than a decade ago.
The ex-presidential candidate shared a bizarre video to his X account in which he is filmed regaling comedian Roseanne Barr about the incident. He captioned his clip: “Looking forward to seeing how you spin this one.”
In the clip RFK sits at a dinner table as Barr listens to why the independent candidate ended up discarding the animal carcass in the New York park. He starts by telling Barr that he was taking a group of people falconing in Goshen, Hudson Valley in the morning.
RFK said that during his journey a woman in front of him driving a van hit a young bear, killing it. RFK then tells Barr that he got out and put the bear in the back of his car with the intention of skinning it and putting the meat in his refrigerator.
He said the practice is legal in New York State if you have a bear tag for road kill bears. RFK said he then continued hawking with his group of acquaintances while the bear remained in his car, and they ended up staying on because the day was going well.
He added he then had to go to a dinner at a steak house in New York, which ended up running late, so he realised he couldn’t go home as he had to go to the airport.
“And the bear was in my car, and I didn’t want to leave the bear in my car,” he said. “Because that would be bad.”
RFK went on to say that at the time there had been a series of bicycle accidents where people had been killed using new bike lanes. “And so I thought,” he added. “I wasn’t drinking, of course, but people were drinking with me who thought this was a good idea.
“And I had an old bike in my car that somebody had asked me to get rid of. “So I said let’s go put the bear in Central Park and we’ll make it look like it got hit by a bike.”
RFK tells a laughing Barr that they thought it would be amusing for whoever found it. But he said the prank got noticed and picked up on every television station, and on the front pages of every newspaper. Read the full story here.
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