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Another bizarre, animal-related story has come to light about Robert F Kennedy Jr with his daughter revealing that he once beheaded a dead whale and tied its head to the roof of the family’s minivan, before setting off on a five-hour drive.
Kathleen Alexandra “Kick” Kennedy made the claim in a 2012 interview with Town and Country, where she traced her own “taste for the extreme” back to her “dad’s eccentric environmentalism.”
The story resurfaced on Monday and prompted calls for the government to investigate RFK Jr for potentially violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.
It comes just weeks after the 70-year-old, who was running for president as an independent until he suspended his campaign and endorsed Donald Trump on Friday, hit headlines for admitting that he dumped a bear cub in New York’s Central Park 10 years ago.
In the resurfaced 2012 interview, Kick Kennedy recounted one day when she was six and the family learned a dead whale had washed up on the beach at Hyannis Port, southeast of Boston.
The actor-turned-philanthropist said that, on hearing the news, her dad headed down to the beach armed with a chainsaw to cut off the whale’s head.
He then strapped the grim body part to the roof of the family’s minivan using bungee cords and then drove the family to Mount Kisco, New York – a drive around four to five hours long.
“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,” Kick recalled in the interview.
“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.”
After the story resurfaced, environmentalists from the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund called for government officials to launch an investigation into whether RFK Jr violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.
In a letter to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the environmental agency said that it is “illegal to possess any part of an animal, dead or alive, that is protected under either statute.
“Continued possession of any whale skull represents a significant and ongoing violation of the law.”
Earlier this month, RFK Jr released a video admitting that he dumped the carcass of a bear cub in Central Park back in 2014.
In the video, featuring actor Roseanne Barr, the nephew of former president John F Kennedy recalls how he saw a car hit and kill the cub in upstate New York, and so picked up the carcass and put it in his car with plans to skin, butcher and keep the meat in his refrigerator.
He went on to say that, upon realizing he had to go to the airport so couldn’t deal with the dead bear, he and his intoxicated friends decided to leave it in the Manhattan park.
The discovery of the dead cub in the park the next day made headlines and remained a mystery for the next decade.
Following RFK Jr’s confession, authorities have said he will not face state charges over the matter.
This bizarre revelation came after it emerged that RFK Jr once said a parasitic worm ate part of his brain and then died inside his head.
According to The New York Times, RFK Jr told the wild story during his deposition for his divorce in 2012.
He testified that he initially feared he had a brain tumour but learned after visiting doctors that there was a dead parasite inside his head.
“I have cognitive problems, clearly. I have short-term memory loss, and I have longer-term memory loss that affects me,” he said.
RFK Jr’s eventful presidential campaign came to an end on Friday when he suspended his bid and endorsed Trump instead, just days after being struck from the presidential ballot in New York.
His support of Trump instantly drew backlash from members of his own family, with his sister Kerry Kennedy saying she is “disgusted” by her brother’s “obscene” backing of the Republican candidate and claiming he had “set fire” to their father senator Robert F Kennedy’s memory.
