A tourist from Washington state is facing federal charges after a witness recorded what prosecutors say was a video of him hurling a coconut-sized rock at an endangered Hawaiian monk seal just off a Maui beach last week.
Special agents with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration arrested Igor Mykhaylovych Lytvynchuk, 38, in the Seattle area Wednesday, the U.S. attorney’s office in Honolulu said. Lytvynchuk, who lives in Covington, Washington, was scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Seattle on Thursday on charges of harassing and attempting to harass a protected animal.
