'Rich enough to pay the fines': Washington man arrested for allegedly throwing rock at seal in Maui 25%
By Dyer Oxley0%
5/14/2026, 8:14:20 PM
Topics: Wildlife Protection, Endangered Species
BS Summary: This article contains 22 faulty reasoning types, including Confirmation Bias, Appeal to Emotion, and Availability Heuristic, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 17.1% saturation with 99 hits. Analysis detected 569 faulty-reasoning hits from 579 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 37.1% and a BS Rank of 25% (12,707 of 16,813 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 75.60% of the article peer group.
A 38-year-old Washington man has been arrested for allegedly throwing a rock at a monk seal on the shores of Maui in early May, an incident that was caught on video and quickly went viral.
The monk seal is well-known to locals who have named her "Lani."
"Lani, we have your back," Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen said in a May 7 statement via Instagram.
"And we hope to see you swimming by Front Street for many years to come."
Mayor Bissen noted that members of his team in the Lahaina area of Maui have been tracking and looking out for Lani the seal "for some time now."
"Lani is not just a seal to us," he said.
"She is part of our ocean 'Ohana in Lahaina.
Many of our residents know her, watch over her, and care deeply about her well being."
See the mayor's full statement below.
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Special agents with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration arrested Igor Mykhaylovych Lytvynchuk near Seattle on Wednesday, May 13.
Lytvynchuk, 38, is a resident of Covington, Wash., roughly 30 miles southeast from Seattle.
On May 5, bystanders took video of a man walking along the beach in the Lahaina area of Maui as he followed a monk seal, Lani, in the nearby shallow water.
The seal was swimming and pushing a log.
The man then took a large rock — one witness described it as the size of a coconut — and threw it at the seal, nearly hitting its head.
The seal was startled and reared out of the water.
Lani was motionless for a time, avoiding the shore, after the scare.
"Let me be clear, this is not the kind of visitor we welcome on Maui," Mayor Bissen said in his May 7 statement.
"We welcome respectful visitors who understand that our culture, environment, and wildlife must be treated with care and aloha.
Behavior like this will not be tolerated."
After obtaining video of the incident, agents were able to compare images of the man with Lytvynchuk's Washington state driver's license photo.
They then tracked him down at a nearby resort.
He was contacted there and exercised his right to remain silent.
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Lytvynchuk has now been charged with harassing and attempting to harass an endangered Hawaiian monk seal, which is a violation of the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
He made his first court appearance Thursday morning at the federal courthouse in Seattle.
Shortly after the rock-throwing incident, witnesses confronted the man and said they had called police.
According to charging documents, the man told witnesses that he was “rich enough to pay the fines" and walked away as Lani was immobile in the water.
Such fines could add up to $50,000 for violating the Endangered Species Act, and up to $20,000 under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
He also faces a potential year in prison and supervised release, if convicted.
“We are committed to protecting our vulnerable wild species, in particular endangered Hawaiian monk seals, like Lani,” U.S.
Attorney Ken Sorenson said in a statement.
“We pledge that those who harass and attempt to harm our protected wildlife will face rapid accountability in federal court."
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