Andrew Buncombe
17 September 2024 1:04am
Federal authorities have confirmed they are investigating Robert F Kennedy Jr for allegedly decapitating a dead whale carcass and taking it home 20 years ago.
Mr Kennedy, the former presidential candidate who has since ended his run and supported Donald Trump, told an election rally he had recently been contacted by National Marine Fisheries Services about the incident.
Speaking at an event on Saturday in Glendale, Arizona, he claimed the inquiry by the agency amounted to “the weaponisation of our government against political opponents”.
“I received a letter from the National Marine Fisheries Institute saying that they were investigating me for collecting a whale specimen 20 years ago,” Mr Kennedy, 70, told a rally at Arizona Christian University.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which overseas the fisheries services, did not immediately respond to inquiries from The Telegraph.
However CNN reported officials at the agency had confirmed that a probe was underway. “It is a long standing NOAA practice not to comment on open investigations,” the spokesperson said.
Kennedy ‘used a chainsaw’
In 2012, Mr Kennedy’s daughter, Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy, told Town & Country magazine when she was a child her father used a chainsaw to cut the head off a dead whale that had washed ashore.
She said he tied it to the roof of the family car with elasticated cord and drove it home.
“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,” she said.
“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.”
Since 1972, whales have been protected in the US under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
It appears reports of Mr Kennedy actions were were noted by a non-profit, the Centre for Biological Diversity Action Fund, which 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.”
Mr Kennedy said on Saturday that after learning he was under investigation he wrote a letter to NOAA accusing the group of killing wildlife with “giant offshore wind farms off the East Coast.”
Earlier this year Mr Kennedy sparked controversy when he admitted dumping the body of a dead bear in New York City’s Central Park over a decade ago in what he thought was a prank.
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