RFK Jr. faces federal investigation for beheading a whale in 1994
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The Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund called on federal authorities to launch a probe against Kennedy after an interview of his daughter recounting details of the incident surfaced.
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Former Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. answers a question as former Democratic Rep. Tusli Gabbards listens as they meet with the media after a campaign event for Republican candidate Donald Trump on September 14, 2024. (AP)
Robert F Kennedy Jr announced on Saturday that he is being investigated by federal authorities for decapitating a whale's head.
"I received a letter from the National Marine Fisheries Institute saying that they were investigating me for collecting a whale specimen 20 years ago," the former presidential candidate said during a campaign event for Donald Trump held in Arizona.
“This is all about the weaponization of our government against political opponents," he added.
Kennedy's daughter details the incident, catches attention of animal organization
Kennedy is facing criticism after a recent 2012 Town & Country interview with his daughter Kick resurfaced, where she discussed the whale in question.
“[He] 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," she recounted.
“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.”
The Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund called on federal authorities to launch a probe against Kennedy after reports of the beheading caught their attention.
The organization wrote a letter to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), stating that the former Independent candidate “violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and possibly the Endangered Species Act, by illegally cutting the head off of a dead whale in or around 1994 in Hyannis Point, Massachusetts, and bringing it to his New York house."
"We hope that the NOAA Office of Law Enforcement, at a minimum, is able to ensure that Mr Kennedy surrenders any and all illegally obtained wildlife that he continues to possess, including the whale skull he took from the Massachusetts beach in 1994," the letter added.
"Given Mr Kennedy’s reckless disregard for the two most important marine conservation laws in the United States, we ask that Noaa consider all appropriate civil and criminal penalties as well."
This is not the first animal-related incident Kennedy has faced.
In August, he received backlash after acknowledging on a video that he was behind the dumping of a dead bear cub in New York Central Park over ten years ago.
Kennedy recounted he initially intended to put the carcass in his van, then skin and eat the bear later. However, since he was short on time, he staged the scene to make it appear a cyclist had struck the animal.
“We thought it would be amusing for whoever found it,” Kennedy said.
