For Immediate Release, August 27, 2024
Contact: Brett Hartl, (202) 817-8121, [email protected]
Federal Officials Urged to Investigate Kennedy’s Unlawful Scavenging of Dead Whale
WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund has urged federal law enforcement officials to investigate a report that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cut the head off a dead whale and transported it across state lines.
As Monday’s letter to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Law Enforcement notes, both the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act make it illegal to possess any part of an animal, dead or alive, protected under either law.
Kennedy’s daughter has said that he cut off the head of a deceased whale he found in Hyannis Port, Mass., in 1994 and brought it to his New York home. Possession of an unlawfully scavenged whale skull would represent a significant and ongoing violation of the law.
“RFK Jr. cutting off the head of a dead whale was both bizarre and illegal, and any serious environmental attorney would know better,” said Brett Hartl, national political director at the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund. “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.”
The Center Action Fund’s letter also points out that Kennedy’s apparent transport of the whale skull from Massachusetts to New York, across state lines, represented a potential felony violation of the Lacey Act.
Passed in 1900, the Lacey Act is one of the country’s earliest wildlife conservation laws. It prohibits the transportation across state lines of any wildlife, dead or alive, that was collected in violation of any state, federal or international regulation or law.
An investigation is warranted, the letter says, to determine what species of marine mammal Kennedy unlawfully harvested, whether Kennedy continues to possess the whale skull, and what other unlawfully collected wildlife Kennedy has in his possession.
Kennedy recently admitted that approximately 10 years ago he saw a bear cub being struck and killed on the road. Apparently, without a salvage permit or legal tag, Kennedy took the bear cub because he wanted to skin it and eat the meat. But instead Kennedy said he dumped the bear cub in Central Park, creating a conservation mystery and wasting the resources of the New York Department of Conservation, which tried to determine how the bear cub ended up in Central Park.
The Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund is a national nonprofit organization that advocates for legislation and legislators that will advance a progressive environmental agenda. The Action Fund is the 501(c)(4) affiliate of the Center for Biological Diversity, but these organizations’ names are not interchangeable. This news release is from the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, not the Center for Biological Diversity.