Bay Area Recovery Canines (BARC) is a volunteer canine search and recovery organization dedicated to providing agencies with with highly trained canines and handlers to assist in the recovery of missing persons.

 

Bay Area Recovery Canines (BARC) is a volunteer canine search and recovery team used by authorities in human remains detection & recovery efforts. Canines are excellent tools to assist law enforcement in locating missing persons. We bring our skills and experience to aid their efforts in a confidential and professional manner.  The members are experienced handlers coming from the wilderness and FEMA search & rescue community who also specialize in working cadaver dogs. 

We have responded to hundreds of missing persons searches in the mid-Atlantic states, as well as have been requested throughout the U.S. for our specialized advanced recovery skills to work missions such as cold cases or technically difficult scenes and national tragedies such as the  Pentagon after the 9-11 attacks, the Space Shuttle Columbia and hurricane Katrina recovery efforts. 

We are resources for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.  As leading specialists in human remains detection, we also provide monthly open training opportunities as well as formal class instruction to other search & rescue teams and law enforcement free of charge.

Emergency Contact #

(authorized agencies only - law enforcement, fire departments, etc) 

  1. (c) 443-994-0505

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BARC is a 501(c)(3) volunteer organization which receives tax-deductible donations from individuals, organizations, and corporations to support fielding qualified dogs and handlers for search & rescue or recovery missions.


BARC does not receive any government or agency funding.   All training & mission responses are done at the expense of the handlers.  All services are provided free of charge to agencies and families.


BARC Flyer
BARC Overview Presentation

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BARC can assist agencies in missing persons or evidence searches:     

  1. Land - remains above ground, buried, disarticulated, in buildings, or debris /rubble

  2. Water – drownings in a pond, lake, or river

  3. Disaster – natural or man-made disasters for live find or for human remains

  4. Cold cases, Fire scenes, & HRD evidence

* Dogs are trained to indicate only on the odor of human decomposition and to ignore all other distractions such as food, live or dead animals, noises, and other dogs working.

BARC search examples:    

  1. Land - disarticulated / above ground - Oklahoma (NCMEC) and recent missing child in New York (NCMEC)

  2.   Search warrants of residences, abandoned buildings, partially collapsed buildings, wilderness & river’s edge

  3. Land - buried - Pennsylvania (NCMEC)

  4. Wilderness, debris pile, & known crime scenes

  5. Water - Potomac River - Medivac Pilot

  6. Disaster - Hurricane Katrina in Bay St.Louis, Mississippi

  7. Cold cases - New York (NCMEC)

  8. Abandoned industrial buildings including outside holding tanks, river / dam, wilderness, debris piles, & swamp

  9. Fire scenes - Annapolis/Anne Arundel County (Office of the Fire Marshal)

  10. 3 story collapsed residential structure

  11. HRD evidence - South Carolina (Klass Kids Foundation) and Mississippi

  12. Additional evidence in known crime scene, wilderness, water, fire scene, & abandoned buildings