There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

RFK Jr faces call for investigation into claim he chainsawed whale’s head off

His independent White House campaign has fizzled, but the flow of bizarre stories of Robert F Kennedy Jr’s unorthodox handling of the carcasses of wild mammals has experienced no similar suspension.

An environmental group is calling for a federal investigation into the former presidential candidate for an episode in which he allegedly severed the head of a washed-up whale with a chainsaw – and drove home with it strapped to his car’s roof.

The episode has parallels with another extraordinary tale reported earlier in August in which Kennedy confessed to dumping a dead bear cub in New York’s Central Park and attempted to make it look like the animal was killed by a bicyclist.

The latest grisly revelation, about the whale head, is not particularly new – it stems from a 2012 interview Kennedy’s daughter Kick gave to Town & Country magazine, in which she talks about a visit to other family members of the political dynasty in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, more than two decades prior.

FunderPants ,

Not weird at all.

Fuckfuckmyfuckingass ,
@Fuckfuckmyfuckingass@lemmy.world avatar

Mf’er really named his kid Kick Kennedy?

anon6789 ,
@anon6789@lemmy.world avatar

Her actual name is Kathleen.

She’s named after her great aunt Kathleen Kennedy, who died in a plane crash at 28 years old. Aunt Kathleen was nicknamed “Kick” because of her “irrepressible nature” and it seems she inherited the nickname as well.

girlfreddy OP ,
@girlfreddy@lemmy.ca avatar

I wanna know how he wasn’t arrested? I mean if any average person had done that their ass would be in jail ffs.

MegaUltraChicken ,

average person

Found the reason.

shalafi ,

What are the charges? When I find skulls laying around our camp I nail them beside the shed door. So far I have a rabbit, tortoise shell and an unidentified herbivore. Lost the deer skull. :(

Call me weird if you like, but criminal? Excepting scale, what’s the difference? Not like he rowed out in the bay and harpooned it himself. I can’t shoot a black bear, but I can do what I please with any remains I find.

Zaktor ,

What are the charges?

You can just, like, read the article. It’s right there. Hyperlinked nicely for you for maximum convenience.

Bonifratz ,

And this is only like, the fifth weirdest headline I’ve read about the guy.

some_guy ,

His daughter:

“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.”

N0body ,

Just a not weird family drive through the country. Seriously though, I’m betting the Harris campaign is sitting on several more of these stories that will roll out over the next couple months.

I’m also wondering where his collection is right now. If he’s being investigated for a federal crime, there may be a search warrant in the works.

IamSparticles ,

Look, guys… he already admitted that he’s not a choir boy. So just drop it, already. Sheesh. /s

someguy3 ,

That… sounds real.

TropicalDingdong ,

whale juice would pour into the windows of the car

Why…

Why wouldn’t you roll up the windows?

Dhar ,

Normal Kennedy day. They only roll the windows up when things get weird.

someguy3 ,

Straps go through the windows?

GBU_28 ,

Lol how would you open the doors

curbstickle ,

You remove the straps then open the doors.

GBU_28 ,

And then the load shifts on the roof, and you get in. How will you tighten the straps?

Why not just run the straps around with the doors open

curbstickle ,

Generally there are more than two windows…

But I never said any of this was a good idea, just answering how you can do it. Some car doors won’t close with a strap in there (my old Chrysler Lebaron for example, $800 of “Its technically driveable”), so me and a friend went in through the windows.

I had town car, all four doors would close just fine, but the station wagon only the front doors would close (so backseat meant crawling through the trunk, aka the fifth seat).

You do what you gotta do

someguy3 , (edited )

You climb in and out through the window. Hardships have to be endured for a whale skull.

catloaf ,

Based on what I’m hearing about the guy, I wouldn’t be surprised if the windows and/or AC were broken and they just left it like that.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Note that he intentionally took his kids to watch him saw the head off and put it on the car and take it home. Because he apparently liked to “study” such things. Weird as fuck.

floofloof ,

All his life he has spent an unusual amount of time around animal corpses. Dead animals are kind of his thing.

p5yk0t1km1r4ge ,
@p5yk0t1km1r4ge@lemmy.world avatar

what the fuck

nondescripthandle ,

Wild day for people who believe in consequences as we beg appeals courts to not let Trump off scot free for misuse of classified documents and hope theres a way to prosecute a Kennedy for decapitating a whale.

greenshirtdenimjeans ,

I wouldn’t be surprised if the brain worms make this guy chainsaw his own head off.

DogPeePoo ,

Weirdo

Tylerdurdon ,

Dang, we missed out on a whale beheading, bear practical joking, brain worming president! It’s just too bad.

TropicalDingdong ,

This can’t be fucking real.

Num10ck ,

how much would a whale head weigh? how would he have raised it onto his car roof without an engine lift and crazy chains? maybe it was a really small whale? why would the windows be open?

magnetosphere ,
@magnetosphere@fedia.io avatar

Okay, but if it was already dead, and he didn’t kill it, what’s the big deal?

“Mr Kennedy’s apparent transport of the marine mammal skull from Massachusetts to New York, and therefore across state lines, also represented a felony violation of the Lacey Act, one of the earliest wildlife conservation laws enacted by [the] United States in 1900,” he wrote, adding that it was also illegal to possess part of any animal protected by the endangered species act.

Oh.

zaph ,

Maybe I was lied to in boy scouts but I was told that law even prevents you from keeping a feather naturally dropped by a bald eagle. So cutting the head off an endangered animal would definitely be a no no.

anon6789 ,
@anon6789@lemmy.world avatar

All feathers are illegal, but they will most certainly throw the book at you for Eagle feathers. The animal rescues have to transport dead bald eagles to the federal government where they get DNA tested and cataloged and feathers are only distributed to Native Americans who have gone through a permit process. A first time offense is a $100k fine and a year in prison.

Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act

Handling and Distribution of Bald and Golden Eagles and Parts

This is exactly as mentioned in other comments, to prevent the “it was already dead when I got here” excuse.

zaph ,

Oh wow thanks for all the info!

anon6789 ,
@anon6789@lemmy.world avatar

Of course! Learning all the crazy laws and regulations is one of my favorite things about visiting rescues.

My favorite legal eagle story is the park near my work had a rescue Bald Eagle that died. I was talking to the caretaker about it, and he told me about the shipping process and the DNA cataloging, and he said the eagle was currently in the freezer to keep it intact for eventual shipping once he received instructions. He told me that was nothing though, he also has another eagle he found in a field from 10 years ago in the freezer with it. It was determined it died of avian influenza (bird flu), so the carcass is banned from leaving its local quarantine zone. At the same time, it’s a federal crime for him to bury it, burn it, etc. So it’s been chilling on ice for a decade awaiting federal intructions. Wild stuff!

someguy3 ,

What’s so special about bald eagle feathers that people want them? Not quite the trophy hunting that I normally think of.

catloaf ,

Not just bald eagles, or all eagles, or even all birds of prey. The migratory bird protection act covers nearly 1,100 species of birds: en.wikipedia.org/…/Migratory_Bird_Treaty_Act_of_1…

And that list includes some very common birds, like some gulls.

someguy3 , (edited )

I think the purpose of that language is to prevent people hunters claiming they just happened to find it dead.

shalafi ,

Yep! Everyone on lemmy acting like this guy harpooned the thing himself. Technically illegal? Sure. But not the sort of thing that’s usually prosecuted unless some sort of public attention is drawn.

mycodesucks ,
@mycodesucks@lemmy.world avatar

Lucky for him nobody has drawn public attention to it.

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/2dd55d8d-8bc4-42f8-a0e6-2707bb466f03.jpeg

ChaoticEntropy ,
@ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk avatar

A close shave… only he and the rest of the English speaking world shall know.

ChaoticEntropy ,
@ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk avatar

Just to be clear though… whether the things he is doing are technically illegal or not… they’re batshit insane. This privileged socialite just running around the US bagging himself any carcasses that aren’t nailed down, transporting them large distances, and sometimes dumping them in places…

superkret ,

I hate when actions that cause no harm are made illegal, just because actions that do cause harm are harder to investigate.

The_Picard_Maneuver ,
@The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world avatar

Every headline I read about this man is pure insanity.

Rottcodd ,

So the unspoken bit about RFK Jr. is that he’s a tweaker, right?

I mean, the details are all in the context of politically entitled progeny, but the underlying vibe I get from the stories about him is very reminiscent of the tweakers I’ve known over the years.

vaultdweller013 , (edited )

Watch the Behind the Bastards on him, he at least used to be really into drugs even got one of his brothers addicted.

Edit: Pretty sure it was the brother that died from a drug overdose.

JimmyBigSausage ,

Please just go away.

reddig33 ,

He’s a weirdo, but an investigation sounds like a waste of resources. The whale was already dead. He didn’t kill it.

shalafi ,

transport of the marine mammal skull from Massachusetts to New York, and therefore across state lines, also represented a felony violation of the Lacey Act

Pretty thin sauce.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • [email protected]
  • random
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines
    •