Police dogs have long been the gold standard for sniffing out missing people, illegal substances, and even bodies. But when the trail leads underwater, canines are at a clear disadvantage. Enter Splash—a highly trained Asian small-clawed otter who may be the first animal of his kind helping law enforcement recover human remains submerged in lakes, rivers, and oceans.
Splash isn’t just a novelty. Since making his search and rescue debut in Alabama—where he helped recover a weapon tied to a 25-year-old murder case—he’s been on 27 missions across the United States. So far, he’s notched six confirmed finds, including four human bodies.
“He’s had more success than many would’ve expected,” said Michael Hadsel, Splash’s owner and trainer, in an interview with Outside magazine. Hadsel has spent nearly five decades working with law enforcement through his company, Peace River K9 Search and Rescue. Until recently, that work focused on dogs. Then, around 2018, Hadsel started to wonder: Could other animals do the job?
It was an article about otters in Bangladesh and India that got him thinking. Local fishermen had trained river otters to herd fish into nets. That, plus the biological quirk that otters can actually smell underwater, sparked a bold experiment.
Unlike dogs, which lose scent in water, otters can exhale small air bubbles and then sniff them back in. It’s a kind of underwater olfaction that no other mammal appears to possess.
By 2024, Hadsel had adopted Splash and started training him. He used human scent markers in a pool and paired them with a tennis ball on the end of a stick. When Hadsel gave the verbal cue “Hoffa” (a wink at missing Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa), Splash would sniff the scent, dive in, and begin his search. If he found a match underwater, he’d return to the surface and signal Hadsel—in exchange for a bite of farm-raised salmon. Splash refuses to eat wild.
One of the biggest challenges wasn’t training Splash to smell, but getting him to communicate while submerged. Otters have membranes that cover their ears underwater, so Hadsel developed a tactile system using a tether: one tug means turn right, two tugs means turn left, three means return to the boat.
The results have surprised even seasoned recovery teams. Splash’s nose has helped solve cold cases, locate drowning victims, and retrieve critical evidence that might have otherwise stayed hidden.
He’s also become something of an internet star. The Peace River K9 Search and Rescue Facebook page saw a surge in followers after Splash’s story started spreading. He’s been featured by multiple media outlets and invited to law enforcement conferences, where his work has sparked serious conversation about expanding the use of animals in forensic recovery.
Still, there are limits. Otters are small, and deploying them in open waters comes with risks. Predators like alligators or large fish could pose a threat. It’s also unclear whether Splash’s success can be easily replicated. Training an otter takes patience, deep expertise in animal behavior, and a fair bit of creativity.
But Hadsel sees potential. “We’re just scratching the surface,” he told Outside. Splash might be the only one of his kind for now, but he’s proven that innovation in search and rescue doesn’t always come from newer tech. Sometimes, it comes in the form of a sleek, whiskered swimmer with a nose for the job.
