Originally published at: RFK Jr investigated for beheading whale with chainsaw
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The investigators really have to ask themselves: what is it with this guy and large animal corpses?
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First I’m hearing of this. All I can say is: WTAF?
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… if they find out that, in fact, RFK Jr. has been killing and eating household pets in Springfield, OH, would anybody be surprised?
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I tried unplugging the world for a week, then plugging it back in again, but that doesn’t seem to have helped at all.
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Did you try blowing on it?
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Even giving it some percussive maintenance doesn’t seem to work. 
Edit to add negativity.
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That story has some serious Clark Griswold energy to it. Is it possible RFKJ is actually Chevy Chase in a hairpiece?
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It needs to be stressed, a dead whale.
Beheading a live whale with a chainsaw would be an awful thing to do, to be sure, but it would have a kind of maniac energy to it, like you’re aspiring to be the Leatherface of the cetacean world.
Beheading a dead whale with a chainsaw is simply creepy.
I mean, unless it’s part of a plan to build a fleet of robotic cyborg necro-whales in which case, again, there’s a certain mad scientist heroic lunacy to the whole project. Still, because it’s RFK jr, I’m going to assume he didn’t have a larger plan, and was just being weird and creepy.
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Has anybody seen what they’re investigating under? When I looked after this came out, the law they’re citing has a 6 year statute of limitations, at least the bit I found.
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There’s a sad end to the Russian spy whale story. Hvaldimir (Norwegian joke: basically “Whaledimir Putin”), the alleged “spy whale”, was recently found dead. Initially there were suggestions that he had been shot, but current thinking is that he died after a floating stick became lodged in his mouth.
No word on where RFK jr was at the time, or whether Norwegian authorities are taking any special measures to prevent RFK from mutilating the corpse.
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Some states have laws about endangered/protected animals, and even collecting their remains can be prohibited. Can’t say with certainty what they’re investigating though.
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Article said Federal, but I also wouldn’t put him past lying about it 
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Collecting sea mammals’ remains is also very much illegal under Federal law unless you have a permit.
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From the linked article (which is fascinating – thank you):
Protected species parts include any part of a protected species … This includes everything from teeth to fur to blood to blow (exhalate) … Urine and feces are not considered parts.
I would just like to say that “From Blood to Blow” would make a fabulous name for … well, almost anything. A band, an album, a novel. There are clearly poets working at the NOAA.
Also, I am impressed to learn that collecting whalebreath is illegal. Not that it would occur to me to do such a thing, but it apparently occurred to someone or they wouldn’t have prohibited it.
I like the “urine and feces” line. You can just imagine some grizzled fisheries bureaucrat growling “Ya want dolphin shit? Knock yourself out, kid.”
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I’m sure Gwyneth Paltrow would love to have access to some dolphin shit and sell it to some rich suckers.
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Well, ambergris used to be big business.
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The first thing I thought was “Don’t they have better things to do with their time?”
I mean, yeah, he cut off a whale’s head. But it was years ago, and already dead.
Seems to me that it would have been better for them to exercise some judgement and say something like “We are declining to investigate this at the moment” and leave it at that.
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