Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is under investigation by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration after a bizarre comment about beheading a dead whale that washed up on a beach, CNN reported.
While speaking in Arizona on Saturday, Kennedy told a crowd that he got a letter from the National Marine Fisheries Services, which falls under NOAA. The letter, he said, revealed he was under investigation for the incident that occurred 20 years ago.
“It is long-standing NOAA practice not to comment on open investigations,” a NOAA spokesperson said on Monday when CNN called to confirm.
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The bizarre tale comes from a 2012 story in Town & Country Magazine with Kennedy's daughter Kathleen "Kick" Kenndy. The piece recalls the moment her father took a chainsaw to cut off the head of a dead whale near their Cape Cod family home and drove the Whale head back to New York.
Over the past several months, the piece resurfaced on social media.
"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 story. "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."
Following the story gaining attention on social media, the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund called for NOAA to investigate Kennedy over the incident, arguing his actions could have jeopardized scientific research.
When speaking Saturday, Kennedy claimed he wrote his own letter to NOAA saying they were the ones killing wildlife, such as whales, with "giant offshore wind farms."
The BBC issued a fact-check of the claim, saying that the comments don't add up. At least 40% of whale deaths were due to human interaction, a report revealed.
