The search is on for a cruel tourist who was caught throwing a coconut-sized rock at a protected monk seal while on vacation in Hawaii.
Infuriated locals are looking to identify the unnamed tourist from Seattle, 37, who was filmed throwing a large rock at a monk seal off the coast of Maui, Hawaii News Now reported.
Footage showed the rock land right in front of the seal’s face, causing the animal to hop out of the water before swimming away on Tuesday.
‘What are you doing? Why would you throw a rock at it? Hello,’ Kaylee Schnitzer, who filmed the interaction, screamed toward the man.
‘What he was picking up was like a rock the size of a coconut,’ the 18-year-old later told Hawaii News Now.
‘It was no small rock. It was the size of a coconut. And he threw it right, directly aiming towards the monk seal’s head.’
Hawaiian monk seals are protected under federal and state law, and residents and tourists are required to stay 50 feet away from them at all times.
Violating the law could carry fines or jail time.
A 37-year-old man from Seattle, who was not identified, threw a rock (circled) at an Hawaiian monk seal while on vacation in Maui on Tuesday
It hit the monk seal, which survived the attacked. The man was detained by the Department of Land and Natural Resources, where he invoked his constitutional rights. DLNR is investigating and plan to take it to NOAA, which can take federal action
The Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) said an investigation was launched into the man, who was detained but released without charge.
‘We’re not able to speak to that individual at this time due to his invoking of his constitutional rights,’ Jason Redulla, DLNR’s division of conservation and resources enforcement chief, told Hawaii News Now.
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Schnitzer called the DLNR immediately after filming the video to report the incident, alongside another witness.
Schnitzer said she observed the animal swimming toward the rocks, where it ‘lay on a rock’ with its head and tail in the water on its back.
‘[It was] just lying there,’ she told the outlet. ‘I wanted to cry. I wanted to go check on the monk seal, but then I was like, we can’t get close to it. We need to just call for help.’
DLNR said it has collected statements and evidence and plans to take the case to NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement, which can take federal action.
Nelson Chauncey, another local, said tourists fail to follow local rules and think their vacation time is just a chance to ‘have fun and let loose,’ he told Hawaii News Now.
‘They don’t really realize this is our home, and these are the protocols we live by every single day.’
Hawaiian monk seals can weigh up to 600 pounds and be up to seven feet long.
It is one of the most endangered seal species in the world, and its population has been declining for six decades, NOAA said.
There is an estimated 1,600 of them left, with the majority of them in Papahānaumokuākea, an area of the ocean in the Northwestern Hawaiian islands.
Around 400 of them live near the main Hawaiian islands.
