Meet Splash, the otter being trained to help with search-and-rescue missions in Florida. The latest member of the team at Peace River K9 Search and Rescue, experts are training Splash to help track the scent of missing people through water, where canines’ capabilities are limited.

Furry First Responder in Training

Splash, a trained search and rescue otter. Charlotte County Public Safety:Facebook
Splash, a trained search and rescue otter; Photo: Charlotte County Public Safety/Facebook

“The saying was that the investigation ends at the water’s edge,” Mike Hadsell at Peace River K9 Search and Rescue told Tampa’s local news outlet WTSP. “I thought, why can’t we train an otter to do this kind of work?”

According to IFL Science, Hadsell had originally posted online about his idea for a new search-and-rescue furry friend, after which he was contacted by an Arizona zoo with a proposed candidate: Splash. Splash has been trained for just over a year by filling three kiddie pools with water and the scent of human remains.

“Splash is trained to locate and identify the odor of human remains. So, his job is to find the human victim underwater in the low visibility conditions that we can’t see them,” Hadsell told WTSP, explaining that humans emit over 500 volatile organic compounds unique to our species that can be used to locate us.

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“You’ll see all these bubbles coming out, and he’s sucking some of those bubbles back in and he’s tasting them. The odor attaches itself to the bubble, and then he tastes it when it comes into his mouth. And so that’s how he does it. When he finds something, he comes back and he grabs my mask,” Hadsell added.

Splash has also ventured out on a few missions outside of the backyard, while tethered to a line and tracked by sonar. According to Popular Science, Splash has had three successful finds thus far.

After being rewarded for successful missions with a salmon treat, Splash likes to spend his free time wrestling with the cats and dogs of Peace River K9 Search and Rescue. Hadsell hopes that Splash and other otters like him could assist law enforcement with the thousands of open missing people cases currently in Florida.