Environmental group calls for investigation

An environmental group is calling for a federal investigation into the alleged 1994 incident in which Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cut off the head of a dead whale and brought it home on the roof of his car, with his family towed behind him.

The Washington DC-based Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund believes that RFK Jr. committed a crime when he chainsawed a dead whale on the beach at Squaw Island in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, and transported the skull across state lines.

The center’s national policy director, Brett Hartl, said the Lacey Act of 1900 makes it illegal to possess “any part of an animal” protected under marine mammal and endangered species laws. In a letter on Monday, he called on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to investigate the incident.

“There are good reasons why it is illegal to collect or preserve parts of an endangered species,” Hartl wrote. “Most importantly, important research opportunities are lost when individuals pick up a wildlife carcass and thus hinder the work of scientists. This is especially true for marine mammals, which are among the most difficult wildlife species in the world to study. In fact, some beaked whales are so difficult to observe that scientists only learn about them when dead animals wash ashore.”

The action group, which recently endorsed Kamala Harris as a presidential candidate, denounced Kennedy earlier this year for calling himself an environmentalist but denying climate change.

The story about the former presidential candidate, who is the son of assassinated civil rights icon Robert F. Kennedy, resurfaced in a 2012 Town & Country magazine interview with his daughter Kathleen “Kick” Cavendish.

She said her father loved studying animal skulls and skeletons, so he strapped the dead whale’s head to the top of his car and drove it five hours home. She described this as “normal everyday stuff for us.”

“Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would run against the windows, which was the most disgusting thing in the world,” she told the magazine. “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 story about the whale eating carrion came after RFK Jr. admitted to dumping a dead bear in New York’s Central Park. He had hoped to take the roadkill animal home and eat it, but left it in the trunk of his car for too long, he explained.

Last week, the independent candidate dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Donald Trump.

Representatives for Kennedy did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.

Axios first reported this story.