By Gus Saltonstall
A decade ago, West Side Rag and many other media outlets reported that a dead bear cub had been found in Central Park, near West Drive and West 69th Street. There were no bear cubs missing from the Central Park Zoo, and the park was not known to be a natural habitat for bears.
Where the cub came from, what had befallen it, and how it got to the park “captivated the city for a couple of days,” wrote the Los Angeles Times.
Then, the news cycle moved on and the case went cold.
Until Sunday, when presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. confessed to having dumped the cub in Central Park in a post on X.
Why would he fess up now?
Kennedy posted the video in an attempt to get ahead of a New Yorker article published Monday morning that mentions the 2014 incident. The article includes a photo of Kennedy Jr. with the dead bear cub.
“Looking forward to seeing how you spin this one, New Yorker,” Kennedy wrote in the caption to the video.
The bear carcass was discovered by an Upper West Sider walking her dog. The animal was found underneath an abandoned bicycle, which Kennedy had also staged at the scene due to an uptick in bike accidents in the park at the time.
“So we did that and we thought it would be amusing for whoever found it or something,” Kennedy said in the video about the Central Park decision and addition of the bike.
An anonymous person with knowledge of the situation told The New Yorker that Kennedy “thought it would be funny to make it look like an errant cyclist.”
Kennedy originally put the dead bear cub into his vehicle after a different car hit and killed the animal while he was driving in upstate New York.
Hear for yourself how Kennedy explained it to Roseann Barr below.
Looking forward to seeing how you spin this one, @NewYorker… pic.twitter.com/G13taEGzba
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) August 4, 2024
Among the 25 comments on our original article, one WSR commenter provided a hypothesis that came within touching distance of the truth, even if there was no way to guess that RFK Jr. was behind it.
“Someone probably hit the bear somewhere upstate and put it in their trunk thinking the might use it for taxidermy and then changed their mind once they got back to the city,” Lucien Desar commented on the article. “Unfortunately, they disposed of it in a terrible way.”
To which another commenter responded, “That’s one of the biggest problems with living in this city — you can never get a taxidermy when you need one.”
Multiple other people commenting on the 2014 story blamed then-Mayor Bill de Blasio.
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These weird people are a sheer menace to society… I can’t believe they’ve had any place in the public discourse for so long.
This is who the bike bro in chief and UWSer Mark Gorton is funding and spending lots of money on.
So I got the bear spray for nothing?
Ha ha!
Maybe the brain worm made him do it?
My thought EXACTLY!
“Multiple other people commenting on the 2014 story blamed then-Mayor Bill de Blasio.”
The more things change…
He thought it would be amusing to the person who found it? What a strange dude.
One might almost say weird, even.
This RFK Jr. guy is not well.
Just when you thought the Presidential Election could not get more embarrassing… We look so bad to the rest of the world.
RFK Jr. is a strange human. The dumping of the bear is strange enough, but picking it up to skin it and put it in his freezer, while riding around in a van with an apparently disposable bicycle, while on his way to a nice dinner…
Strange guy with inherited wealth and fame, but not much more. than that.
The video is surreal. The man has a voracious appetite for flesh. He talks about wanting to eat the bear but not being able to miss dinner a Lugers. All the while he’s sitting at a table with huge beef ribs and a brain full of worm holes. Presidential.
Some people said his candidacy was a ploy by the GOP to split the liberal vote but it was always obvious that Bobby would be siphoning votes away from Trump and not the Democratic nominee whoever it is. He’ s wacko.
If he’s a threat to Trump and not the Democrats, then why has the DNC been frantically (and quite undemocratically) been trying to prevent RFK, Jr. from appearing on state ballots?
1. https://www.yahoo.com/news/rfk-jr-certified-nebraska-fall-142618938.html
2. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/north-carolina-democrats-sue-to-reverse-decision-that-put-rfk-jr-on-ballots/ar-BB1qHH7L?ocid=BingNewsSerp
3. https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/22/politics/democrats-legal-challenges-rfk-jr-ballot/index.html
Him siphoning votes away from Trump is not necessarily a bad thing. Trump does take his supporters for granted just like NY Dems take minorities for granted.
It’s quite obvious that RFK can’t hold his bear.
This is just sociopathic.
He’s unbearable. Honestly, can’t bear to listen to this story. And what’s up with Barr? I thought she was all in on Trump. Anyway, RFK jr jumped the shark on this one. Oh, wait, sharks are Trump’s thing, amirite?
I would never vote for him. He’s a sleazebag.
It feels like he’s just a pathological liar
Kennedy was 60 years old when he did this. I guess Kennedy roared with laughter when he saw how much attention his prank was getting. He must have told some friends in order to share the fun. I think most people would be saddened by a dead baby bear and not have thought of a way to use the corpse to have fun.
Yeah, he was just a lad still in his developmental phase of life.
I thought this was all very disturbing to begin with, but I just saw a repost of the 2014 photo of Kennedy with his hand in the mouth of the dead mutilated bear cub and pretending it was biting him. Along with the caption, ‘maybe that’s where I got my brain worm.’
I have no words to describe how disgusted I am with this man.
Deranged. His NYC privileges should be revoked.
Creative way to end a political career.
He is so strange.
what a dope
This is so disturbing. A clue into his mental capacity and judgement. Both severely lacking .
Those worms have been in there for that long, huh?
And he wants to be President! No wonder most of his family is horrified. They know how wacky he is even without the bear story.
NOW can we all admit he’s crazy?
Almost as weird as the other guys.
Still, which is weirder? A man who would rather be eaten by a shark than being electrocuted by an “electric boat” (do they even exist?) or a man who thinks it might be “funny” to leave a dead bear in Central Park?
Bobby’s Cubbaquiddick
And this man is running for president?
“To which another commenter responded, “That’s one of the biggest problems with living in this city — you can never get a taxidermy when you need one.””
Criminal charges would fit that lunatic just right. Animal cruelty, and abusing the emergency services such as police for him to screw around. It is never too late for some sort of criminal charges to be thrown at him, and i hope it happens.