Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has never been shy about courting controversy, but a newly unearthed journal entry shows the environmental lawyer and incoming Secretary of Health and Human Services once took his curiosity about wildlife a little further than most people would dare. According to biographer Isabel Vincent, Kennedy admitted to stopping on Interstate 684 in Westchester County, pulling out a knife, and removing the penis from a raccoon that had been struck and killed by traffic—all while his children waited in the car.
What the Journal Entry Actually Says
The passage appears in Vincent’s forthcoming biography, RFK Jr.: The Fall and Rise, and is lifted verbatim from one of Kennedy’s own notebooks. The line reads: “I was standing in front of my parked car on I-684 cutting the penis out of a road-killed raccoon, thinking about how weird some of my family members have turned out to be.” The excerpt is brief, but it offers a rare, unfiltered glimpse into Kennedy’s off-beat sense of humor and his willingness to dissect—literally—his surroundings.
There is no indication that Kennedy broke any laws. Road-kill collection is legal in New York State provided the animal is not a protected species and the person harvesting it possesses the appropriate small-game hunting license or salvage permit. Raccoons are classified as small-game mammals, and no permit is required for personal use of animals killed by vehicles. Still, the mental image of a prominent political figure kneeling beside a highway to perform impromptu surgery on a carcass is jarring enough to have ricocheted across social media within hours of the book’s serialization.
Why Would Anyone Do That?
Kennedy has spent decades as an environmental activist and has written extensively about pollution, species decline, and the hidden toxins he believes are eroding public health. Friends who have accompanied him on hikes say he has an almost forensic fascination with animal remains. “If he finds a skull or a pelt, he’ll want to know how it died, how old it was, whether it’s male or female,” one longtime hiking partner told InfluencersWiki. “He’s the kind of guy who carries plastic bags in his backpack just in case he stumbles across something worth studying.”
Scientists who work with road-kill specimens—a discipline known as “carcass ecology”—say Kennedy’s actions are less outlandish than they appear. Researchers routinely collect reproductive organs to measure pollutant loads. Phthalates, PCBs, and heavy metals accumulate fastest in the liver, kidneys, and gonads of scavenging mammals. By analyzing tissue samples, ecologists can map contamination hotspots without deliberately killing animals. In that context, Kennedy’s roadside dissection starts to look more like citizen science than a macabre stunt.
Other Animal Encounters That Raised Eyebrows
This is hardly the first time Kennedy’s interactions with wildlife have landed him in the headlines. Over the years he has:
- Strapped a 200-pound black-bear carcass to the roof of his minivan in 2014 and driven it to upstate New York for burial, an episode he later recounted on a podcast.
- Helped tow a deceased humpback whale off a Cape Cod beach so scientists could perform a necropsy; he later posted photos of himself standing inside the whale’s mouth.
- Joined Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell on a 1994 expedition to Alberta’s Badlands to hunt for dinosaur fossils, a trip that has since drawn scrutiny because of Epstein’s criminal record.
Kennedy’s defenders argue that each incident was grounded in legitimate scientific curiosity. Critics counter that the pattern suggests a taste for spectacle. Either way, the anecdotes reinforce his reputation as the most unconventional member of America’s most storied political dynasty.
Family Reactions and the “Weird Relatives” Joke
In the same journal entry, Kennedy muses that his brother Douglas Kennedy and cousin Bobby Shriver are the actual “family weirdos,” a tongue-in-cheek nod to the long-running media portrayal of the Kennedys as eccentric. Douglas, a former Fox News correspondent, once filmed a segment while cage-diving with great-white sharks. Bobby Shriver, an attorney and philanthropist, has spent decades advocating for the rights of the developmentally disabled, often in headline-grabbing ways. Compared with those exploits, Robert seems to suggest, a quick roadside vasectomy on a raccoon barely registers.
Family friends say the siblings have always competed, sometimes absurdly, to outdo one another. “They grew up in a fishbowl,” says a Kennedy cousin who asked not to be named. “When your every move is photographed, you either retreat or you lean into the caricature. Robert leans in—hard.”
Public Health Nomination and the Spotlight on Past Behavior
President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to nominate Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services has revived interest in every chapter of his personal history, including the raccoon incident. Senate confirmation hearings are expected to focus on his record on vaccine safety, environmental enforcement, and opioid litigation, but opposition researchers have already begun circulating the raccoon story as evidence of
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