Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Admits He Dumped Dead Bear Cub in Central Park Years Ago
In a bizarre video featuring disgraced comedian Roseanne Barr, controversial political scion and current presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. admitted to once dumping the body of "a young bear” in Central Park after efforts to skin its hide and preserve its meat went awry. His admission puts an end to a mystery that baffled and disturbed New York City residents for 10 years.
The video, posted by Kennedy to his social media channels, features the politician seated at a table in what appears to be a residential kitchen as Barr stands over him, clutching a coffee cup and nodding understandingly throughout the video. The visual statement was apparently released in an effort to get ahead of a New Yorker article, published Monday, which contains a version of the story along with a photo of him posing with his fingers in the dead bear's mouth.
In the video, Kennedy tells Barr that he was driving in a caravan back to Manhattan from upstate New York when the car in front of him killed “a young bear.”
“I pulled over and I picked up the bear and put him in the back of my van because I was going to skin the bear,” Kennedy explained matter-of-factly. “It was very good condition and I was going to put the meat in my refrigerator. And you can do that in New York State. You can get a bear tag for roadkill bear [sic].”
Kennedy then explains that he and his friends went bird shooting and had “a really good day,” but lost track of time. Because they stayed out hunting for so long, Kennedy ran out of time to return to his home in Westchester. Instead, he had to head out to Manhattan for a dinner.
Kennedy took the bear into the city, and it sat in his car for the duration of an extended dinner at Peter Luger Steak House. Intending to return to Westchester after dinner, Kennedy again found he had run out of time to drop off the bear’s carcass. Now he had to hightail it to the airport for a flight. So he decided the best course of action would be to dump the bear in Central Park and make it look like a cycling accident. A spate of bicycle-related incidents had recently been grabbing headlines across the city.
“We thought it would be amusing for whoever found it,” Kennedy told Barr. But it wasn’t amusing for very long. “The next day it was on every television station,” Kennedy recalled. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, what did I do?’ I was worried because my prints were all over that bike…Luckily, the story died down after a while.”
The bear cub’s discovery caused a great deal of speculation upon its discovery. The New York Times reported at the time that a woman named Florence Slatkin discovered the body while she was walking her dog in the park. The NYPD’s Animal Cruelty Investigation Squad determined that the cub’s death was caused by a vehicle, but that the scene was “likely not [in] the park.” The story eventually dried up along with any leads in the case.
“It stayed dead for a decade,” Kennedy said of the story. “The New Yorker somehow found out about it, and they’re gonna do a big article on me and that’s one of the articles [sic]. So they asked me, the fact checkers; and you know, it’s gonna be a bad story.”
“Uh-oh,” Barr laughs, as a man off-camera exclaims, “I think it’s a great story.”
While it’s true that one can take roadkill for their own purposes in New York State, the law dictates that one must notify law enforcement or the state's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).
The DEC recommends disposal of deceased wildlife should be undertaken with precaution using specific measures. First and foremost is the recommendation that all corpses should be buried “in a location that will protect both surface water and groundwater from contamination” and that “the carcass is covered with at least two feet of soil.” Another option is to triple-bag the carcass and dispose of it in a designated landfill.
The DEC did not immediately return a request for comment from Men’s Journal concerning the penalties for Kennedy’s admitted actions.
Looking forward to seeing how you spin this one, @NewYorker… pic.twitter.com/G13taEGzba
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) August 4, 2024