{"id":824936,"date":"2026-05-27T06:23:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T06:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/824936\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T06:23:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T06:23:13","slug":"attorney-says-tourist-was-protecting-turtles-by-throwing-rock-at-hawaiian-seal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/824936\/","title":{"rendered":"Attorney says tourist was protecting turtles by throwing rock at Hawaiian seal"},"content":{"rendered":"

HONOLULU (AP) \u2014 The defense attorney for a tourist from Washington state accused of hurling a coconut-sized rock at an endangered Hawaiian monk seal<\/a> says his client was trying to protect sea turtles and has since been physically assaulted, threatened and doxed. <\/p>\n

Igor Lytvynchuk, 38, of Covington, Washington, is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Honolulu Wednesday on charges of harassing and attempting to harass a protected animal. <\/p>\n

Earlier this month, a witness recorded what prosecutors say was a video of him throwing the rock at a Hawaiian monk seal at a Maui beach. He later made arrangements to surrender in the Seattle area as special agents with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were seeking to arrest him, prosecutors said. <\/p>\n

The video drew widespread condemnation and demands for prosecution in Hawaii, including from Maui\u2019s mayor. Scientists identified the seal as an adult male known as \u201cR404,\u201d NOAA said. <\/p>\n

According to prosecutors, a state Department of Land and Natural Resources officer investigated a report of Hawaiian monk seal harassment in Lahaina, the community that was largely destroyed by a deadly wildfire in 2023<\/a>. A witness showed the officer video of the seal swimming in shallow water while a man watched from shore. <\/p>\n

The video showed Lytvynchuk throwing the rock, described by a witness as the size of a coconut, directly at the seal, narrowly missing its head, prosecutors said in a criminal complaint. <\/p>\n

When a witness confronted Lytvynchuk, he said \u201che did not care and was \u2018rich\u2019 enough to pay any fines,\u201d according to the complaint. <\/p>\n

Afterward, a man \u201cbrutally assaulted\u201d Lytvynchuk, his defense attorney Myles Breiner told The Associated Press. Lytvynchuk declined to file a police report on the assault, the attorney said. <\/p>\n

Breiner explained his client had been to Hawaii previously and was familiar with sea turtles, but not Hawaiian monk seals. Lytvynchuk is a fisherman and thought the seal was an aggressive sea lion, the lawyer said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo his response was not to hurt this monk seal, but to get it away from the turtles,\u201d Breiner said. <\/p>\n

The incident shows NOAA must do more to educate the public about protecting Hawaiian monk seals<\/a>, Hawaii\u2019s U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat, said in a statement. <\/p>\n

Since the video surfaced, Lytvynchuk has faced death threats and doxing, including receiving a package at his home containing what appeared to be feces, Breiner said. <\/p>\n

He said his client is being treated unfairly because he\u2019s a white outsider. \u201cThe vast majority of attacks on monk seal and turtle are by locals,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Lytvynchuk is charged with violations of the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.<\/p>\n

Hawaiian monk seals are a critically endangered species. Only 1,600 remain in the wild.<\/p>\n

If convicted, he faces up to one year in prison for each charge. He also faces a fine of up to $50,000 under the Endangered Species Act and a fine of up to $20,000 under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HONOLULU (AP) \u2014 The defense attorney for a tourist from Washington state accused of hurling a coconut-sized rock…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":824937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[27],"tags":[3425,49087,168,9562,57,26621,81747,47368,338833,338834,12231,159,61,67,132,68,2057,2058,837],"class_list":["post-824936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-animals","tag-brian-schatz","tag-domestic-news","tag-endangered-species","tag-general-news","tag-hawaii","tag-hi-state-wire","tag-honolulu","tag-igor-lytvynchuk","tag-myles-breiner","tag-national-oceanic-and-atmospheric-administration","tag-science","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wa-state-wire","tag-washington","tag-wildlife"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/824937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}