It’s funny because I don’t recall anyone having a 2024 bingo card that featured a candidate for president telling the story about dumping a bear cub dead in a park. But here we are.
As we reported on Sunday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent candidate, shared a video with comedienne/actress Roseanne Bar over the weekend. In the video, Kennedy talked about how a woman who drove in front of him killed a bear cub during a falconry outing in 2014.
He claimed to have stopped to pick up the cub and intended to bring it home for skinning. He didn’t want the bear to be left in the vehicle for too long, so he took an old bicycle and placed it in Central Park with the bear to make it appear that someone had hit the bear with a bicycle.
His claims are bizarre but they seem to resolve a mystery that has been a New Yorker story for 10 years. They also put RFK Jr. in front of RFK’s alleged story, which the New Yorker was working on.
New York City Sanitation Dept. The New York City Sanitation Dept. has also joined in, injecting much-needed humor into the story by posting a tweet on Monday that refers to how to dispose of dead animals in the Big Apple. The post did not mention the Kennedy video, but I believe it was obvious by the names of the bags that the authors had in mind his story when they posted it.
Wondering how to dispose of a dead animal in New York City? Get the facts: https://t.co/7j88pwjh3c pic.twitter.com/QPYzdaPB4I
— NYC Sanitation (@NYCSanitation) August 5, 2024
The page explains what to do when the animal is found on public or private property. Kennedy’s statement suggests that the bear was discovered on public land. They have a form for this:
You can report an animal dead for removal from public places, such as
- Sidewalk
- Streets
- Highways
- Parks
- Beaches
- Bodies of Water
Report any dead animals on public property.
The New York Post reported that Kennedy didn’t follow the correct channels to be allowed to tag and take the bear home. However, he will not face any charges or fines for what happened because the statute of limitation has expired.
Kennedy, a former environmental lawyer who is now in a bad relationship with his former friends, claimed he planned to get a bear tag so he could harvest the meat of the cub.
He didn’t even do the minimum required by the Environmental Conservation Law of California, which outlines steps that people can take to preserve roadkill meat. This includes reporting accidents to law enforcement.
Illegally possessing a bear without a tag, and illegally disposing of a bear are violations that can result in fines of up to $250 on a first offense.
Gee. Who’da thought?
