A decade-long mystery of a dead bear cub that was discovered in New York’s Central Park has been solved after presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. admitted to dumping the carcass there in 2014 as part of what he views as an elaborate prank.
Kennedy posted a video of his confession on his X account Sunday. In the three-minute video, the independent presidential candidate tells comedian Roseanne Barr the bizarre details of his encounter with a black bear cub. Kennedy says he was driving upstate when a van in front of him struck a black bear cub in the road and killed it.
“So, I pulled over, picked up the bear, and put him in the back of my van,” Kennedy told Barr. “I was going to skin the bear. It was in very good condition, and I was going to put the meat in my refrigerator.”
Instead, Kennedy says he continued with his plans for the day, which included a lengthy falconry outing near Goshen in Upstate New York, followed by a steak dinner at a well-known restaurant in Brooklyn.
“We went hawking, and I had the bear in my car,” Kennedy told Barr as she calmly sipped from a mug. “We had a really good day, and we went late. We were catching a lot of game. People really loved it, so we stayed late.”
Kennedy explained how he was crunched for time and had to go straight from hunting near Goshen to New York City for a dinner at Peter Luger Steak House, with the dead cub still stashed in his vehicle.
“At the end of the dinner, it went late, and I realized I couldn’t go home. I had to go to the airport,” Kennedy said. “I didn’t want to leave the bear in my car because that would have been bad.”
At this point, the Kennedy scion claimed he channeled his inner “redneck” and hatched a plan. Bike lanes had recently been installed throughout NYC, and bike accidents were prominent in the news.
“A couple of people had gotten killed, and it was every day that people had been badly injured. Every day, it was in the press,” Kennedy said. “I wasn’t drinking, of course, but people were drinking with me who thought this was a good idea.”
Kennedy then used an old bicycle that was also, somehow, in his car to stage an accident in Central Park.
“We’ll make it look like he got hit by the bike,” Kennedy said, laughing. “It will be funny for people.”
According to a 2014 New York Times article, 79-year-old Florence Slatkin found the dead bear while walking her dog in Central Park. Slatkin, who did not appear amused by the dead bear cub, called 911.
“The mouth was open, and it looked bloody,” Slatkin told reporters in October 2014. “At first, I thought it was a raccoon.”
The discovery set off an investigation by the NYPD.
“The next day, it was on every television station,” Kennedy said. “It was on the front page of every paper. I turned on the TV, and there was a mile of yellow tape and 20 cop cars. There were helicopters flying over it … There were people in Tyvek suits lifting up the bike. They were saying they were going to take this up to Albany to get it fingerprinted. I was worried because my prints were all over that bike.”
Kennedy didn’t immediately fess up to the macabre practical joke. It took him 10 years to eventually come clean in a recorded conversation with Barr. He also posted the video just one day before an article about his presidential campaign appeared in The New Yorker; it also contained the story.
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Although Kennedy assured Barr that “you can get a bear tag for roadkill” in New York (a common practice in many states), the New York Department of Environmental Conservation doesn’t specify requirements for possessing a black bear carcass that was hit by a car. Instead, the DEC told news outlets that his actions would have likely incurred at least a $250 fine at the time for “the illegal possession of a bear without a tag or permit and illegal disposal of a bear.” The statue of limitations has since expired, which means Kennedy won’t be cited. The DEC also outlines four ways to legally dispose of wild animal carcasses in general, none of which involve stashing them in the bushes of Central Park.