Book Reveals RFK Jr. Collected Animal Parts on Family Trips

: The Fall and Rise," authored by Isabel Vincent, describes an incident in which Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stopped a family car on Interstate 684 to remove the penis from a dead raccoon. He collected the part to study it later, according to a passage from his private journals written while living in New York City between 1999 and 2001.

The book, published by the New York Post, relies on various sources including those journals. In the journal entry, Kennedy reflected on family relationships while performing the act, with his children waiting in the car. He later told People magazine that he gathered the raccoon's genitals for later study.

The book notes that Kennedy has a history of collecting animal parts and carcasses.

Earlier Family Incident with Whale Carcass Kennedy's daughter, identified as Kick Kennedy, described in a 2012 Town & Country magazine interview an occasion during a family vacation to Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, when her father used a chainsaw to decapitate a whale carcass that had washed ashore on Squaw Island.

He secured the whale's head to the roof of the family minivan with a bungee cord to bring it home for study. The family experienced leakage from the head during the drive, leading to discomfort, as recounted in the interview.

Additional Accounts of Animal Handling In 2024, while running for president, Kennedy stated in a New Yorker magazine interview that about a decade earlier, he had placed a dead bear cub in Central Park after attempting to skin it.

He explained in a social media video that he found the cub during a falconing trip in Goshen, New York, and that he and others had been drinking when they decided to leave the body there to resemble a bicycle accident. The book also references a 2025 report in the Telegraph about a letter from a Kennedy family member to lawmakers, describing Kennedy's college practice of blending chicks and mice to feed his hawks.

No public results from Kennedy's studies of the whale head or raccoon penis have been disclosed, according to the book.

These accounts provide context to Kennedy's interest in animal specimens over the years. The book covers his personal life and career, including his role as a health official.