What Happened to the Bronx Police Seals? A Wild History You Won’t Believe

In the storied history of the famed New York City borough, The Bronx, there resides one wild tale that has remained dormant for years. Not in the bevy of Bronx coffee shops, delis, or its subway stops are its residents and tourists speaking of the time when three harbor seals were trained to retrieve .38-caliber revolvers.

That is, until November 2025, when a TikTok user, who claimed to think about this story every day of her life, and now, so do we.

You have no doubt heard of police K-9s, mounted police units who work with horses, and other animal-based outreach programs. But other mammals, historically, haven't always been included in the annals of police lore.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the tale of the time when harbor seals were trained to perform police duties. Seriously.

According to an archived story in The New York Times from June 17, 1987, trainers at the Northwind Undersea Institute, located on City Island in the Bronx, sought to teach three harbor seals to "retrieve .38-caliber revolvers thrown into water tanks. In return, Joy Ross, their trainer, gives them fresh herring. It's one of those herring-for-guns deals."

Sandlofer, at the time, explained that among the variety of police duties the seals were being trained to perform, the seals were being taught to retrieve handguns tossed into bodies of water throughout New York City, as well as retrieve drugs and contraband.

''People come here from all over the world now,'' Sandlofer said, per The New York Times, ''to see the work we're doing with the seals and with rescue equipment for beached whales."

The "Seal Search and Recovery Team," Sandlofer said, was to be taught to "take underwater photographs for bridge inspection and other purposes, and to find submerged bodies, which can impede the navigation of New York pleasure boaters, among other things."

Former Borough President Stanley Simon was tabbed as the namesake for one of the three seals, whom the training team dubbed the "official seal."

"Stanley is a 2-year-old harbor seal, who retrieves the handguns to the delight of schoolchildren who visit the museum in groups almost every day. Stanley also demonstrated one of his new tricks yesterday, something more macabre, which is unbuckling seat belts on submerged humans," The New York Times reported.

"God forbid a seal has hobbies," one TikTok user commented in response to indipine's explainer video. Another admitted, "I always thought Navy SEALS were literal seals; I feel less crazy!"

As @indipine explains in Part 2 of her tale, a staff member embezzled money intended for the seals' care, so the seals were relocated to another facility. The police training, as you might expect, concluded following the transfer of the seals to another location.

According to a press release on Oct. 16, the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk announced that one of the three seals, Rasal, died at the age of 40.

The whereabouts of Stanley are unknown, while Sirius's status was similarly poorly tracked.