Daughter remembers

Kennedy desecrated whale carcass with chainsaw

Robert F. Kennedy feels misunderstood - again ...

(Bild: AP/Darryl Webb)

The once non-partisan US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy apparently not only misused the carcass of a bear for his own purposes. Twenty years ago, he is also said to have illegally abused a beached whale - with a chainsaw, according to his daughter.

During a campaign appearance for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Kennedy said that he was under investigation for allegedly illegally removing parts of a dead whale from a beach 20 years ago and taking them home.

The nephew of legendary ex-president John F. Kennedy caused a stir just a few weeks ago with a bizarre story about a bear corpse dumped in New York's Central Park. Like the bear story, the whale incident happened several years ago.

Daughter told of whale incident
In 2012, a report about Kennedy's daughter Kick appeared in the magazine "Town & Country". According to the article, when she was a child, it became known that a dead whale had washed up on the coast of New England in the north-east of the USA. Her father then drove to the beach with a chainsaw, cut off the whale's head and then attached it to the roof of the family's car with a rope.

The most disgusting thing in the world.

Kick Kennedy

Bild: AFP/Leigh Vogel

The reason for this was that Robert F. Kennedy liked to study animal skulls and skeletons. "Every time we accelerated on the highway, the whale juice poured into the windows of the car, and it was the most disgusting thing in the world," daughter Kick is quoted as saying.

Kick Kennedy with her father during a book signing for his book "Crimes Against Nature" in 2004, 20 years ago.

(Bild: Getty Images/Tim Boyles)

This is not the first hair-raising story about Kennedy: a few months ago, he admitted to finding a bear's corpse on the road around ten years ago and loading it into his car. He had actually wanted to skin the bear and store the meat in his fridge, he said. But then he had to go to the airport and dumped the dead bear in Central Park instead. In the wake of this bear episode, the old "Town & Country" article received new attention.

Kennedy said at a campaign event at the weekend that he had received a letter stating that he was under investigation. It was unclear whether an official investigation had really been launched against the 70-year-old and, if so, what the exact background was. With regard to the investigation, Kennedy presumably spoke of a federal government naval authority - but did not describe it correctly. In a letter, an environmental organization had called on the authority to investigate Kennedy over the whale incident.

Kennedy sees partisan political coloring
The Trump supporter criticized the process as being motivated by party politics and referred to the statute of limitations. In the USA, it is illegal to collect parts of protected marine animals under certain circumstances.

Kennedy has since endorsed Trump.

(Bild: Getty Images/Rebecca Noble)

Kennedy withdrew from the race for the White House in August and backed the Republican Trump. The politician was himself a Democrat for decades, but has increasingly distanced himself from the party in recent years and broke away from the Democrats completely in October 2023 when he announced his presidential candidacy as a non-party member. The avowed anti-vaccinationist was frequently criticized by Democrats and other members of his family for spreading conspiracy myths and associating with extreme right-wing politicians.