SEATTLE \u2014 Federal prosecutors say the man who allegedly threw a rock at an endangered monk seal on the island of Maui, Hawaii, is set to appear in federal court in Seattle on Thursday. <\/p>\n
Documents say 38-year-old Igor Mykhaylovych Lytvynchuk, of Covington, WA, was arrested near Seattle on Wednesday by special agents of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).<\/p>\n
He has been charged by criminal complaint for allegedly violating the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act, according to court documents. <\/p>\n
On May 5, Lytvynchuk was allegedly captured on video picking up a large rock and throwing it at the monk seal named \u2018Lani,\u2019 narrowly missing her nose and causing her to rear out of the water, the complaint said. <\/p>\n
Court documents say when witnesses informed Lytvynchuk that police had been called, he reportedly said he was \u201crich enough to pay the fines.\u201d<\/p>\n
If found in violation of the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act, he could face up to a year in prison for each charge and up to $70,000 in fines, prosecutors said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe unique and precious wildlife of the Hawaiian Islands are renowned symbols of Hawaii\u2019s special place in the world and its incredible biodiversity,\u201d U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are committed to protecting our vulnerable wild species, in particular endangered Hawaiian monk seals, like Lani,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEATTLE \u2014 Federal prosecutors say the man who allegedly threw a rock at an endangered monk seal on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[47138,192,277470,277233,277471,60746,79],"class_list":["post-642455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-endangered-species-act","tag-environment","tag-hawaiian-monk-seals","tag-igor-mykhaylovych-lytvynchuk","tag-lani","tag-marine-mammal-protection-act","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}