‘Stop the Boats’ – An Innovative Solution ?

I last published in April on the whys and wherefores of our ‘broken’ immigration system. 

By that stage the government had realised that 'Stopping the Boats' was a make or break problem for them, and was just starting to get focused on more active deterrence measures. The PM is now sporting it as one of his 5 principal objectives.

However, since then their increasingly fraught campaign has, perhaps predictably, come up against many obstacles and delays, mainly due to unwelcome human intervention. As the Bard might have put it, “..One barge-load does not a solution bring….”, particularly if the new 'clients' are disembarked within a week of taking up residence because of 'health concerns'. 

In the absence of either of our major political parties coming up with any really effective solution, and to avoid becoming even more of a laughing stock for the people smugglers, we should perhaps consider some more off the wall suggestions.

One of the more inventive ones I’ve come across recently involves enlisting the help of another species - read on to discover how…..

It may not have escaped the notice of regular news followers that one particular marine species has been in the news recently, and has been causing quite a ‘stir’ (please excuse the unintended pun) in the waters off Gibraltar….Orcas.

This highly intelligent member of the dolphin family is renowned for its inventiveness, and has for some reason taken to attacking small boats off the Spanish coast.

The technique they use is quite specific – they attack the boats' rudders. These particular orcas appear to have figured out that a boat’s rudder is essential for its ability to get anywhere, and have perfected a technique of breaking or at least damaging the rudder of small offshore fishing vessels sufficiently to make the boat un-steerable without actually sinking the vessel. Disabling their boats in this way has wreaked havoc amongst the fishing community, and is also attracting quite a bit of tourist interest.

The reason for this somewhat novel behaviour isn’t yet clear; some say it’s just a game they’ve invented to entertain themselves. My view is that they have a more specific motive and have recognised that the boats are competing for their fish stocks – notably their principal prey species – tuna. To combat the threat to their livelihoods, they are simply, and hitherto quite successfully, trying to eliminate the competition. (Interestingly, the phenomenon also seems to have spread to the North Sea recently, making one wonder whether there really is a marine 'bush telegraph'.)

Whatever the reason for their behaviour, the point is that we have here a population of Orcas which has trained itself to incapacitate small boats without causing loss of life, and appears to be doing very well at it.

These ‘killer whales’ are, however, at significant risk.

As a protected species, in theory they can’t be harmed or otherwise interfered with. However, the local Spanish fishing industry is already incensed at the cost of repairing their broken rudders, and the consequent loss of their fishing quota and income, and it is only a matter of time before they take the law into their own hands and start using harpoons, heat-seeking torpedoes and even mini-depth charges to remove the threat to their livelihoods.

Could we not help to defuse this unfortunate situation by putting the skills cleverly developed by these animals to good use a little further north, and thus remove the very real threat to their existence at the hands of incensed Spanish fishermen ?

If we could persuade these orcas to spend the next couple of summers patrolling the French coast for us in the area adjacent to the immigrant beaches, they could easily achieve more in a few weeks than the French gendarmerie have done in the past 5 years, and probably seriously disrupt the people-smuggler’s business model in the process….

Why might we expect this solution to be effective ?

Killer whales are large animals and can be up to 8m long and  weigh up to 6 tonnes. As such, they are viewed by most of us with a degree of respect; they are certainly not to be trifled with, particularly if you enter their watery environment - and happen to resemble a medium-sized seal....

As soon as it became widely known that killer whales with a demonstrated capability and inclination to damage, and potentially sink, small boats were patrolling the people-smuggling embarkation beaches, I suspect there would be a marked decline in small boat launches. Even the people-smugglers' current trick of simultaneous multiple launches would fail - the orcas are highly maneuverable and would respond to the challenge by sinking the lot....

The principal problem we have with stopping the boats 'at source' is that once a boat is launched from the beach, the French authorities will not intervene unless the crew specifically request help. It is obviously in their interests not to do so, given the investment they have already made in getting to Britain, and this forms a key part of the smugglers business model. Crews will therefore go all out to reach far enough off shore to be within the range of our rescue boats. If the orcas were strategically placed to patrol the vital zone just offshore, this would provide a major deterrent.

Instead of the quick ride currently available on one of our comfortable and well-equipped marine UK Border Force / RNLI ‘rescue taxis’ across to Folkestone or Dover, there would be an immediate threat of a watery end to their trip before they had even left French inshore waters, with little possibility of rescue from a disabled and possibly overturned boat. 

Neither would using much larger and more expensive boats (presumably with unbreakable rudders!) in the channel as an alternative be a viable model for the people-smugglers, given the crowded nature of the shipping lanes, the ease of detection - and the need to make a healthy profit.

The real beauty of this scheme is that, as a protected species, counter measures by the crews of the boats would be prohibited by both international and national laws, since Orcas are an endangered species. Thus anyone caught piloting or even launching a boat with armaments on board i.e. obviously ‘going equipped’ to kill or maim whales, would face immediate arrest on such charges, even if they were lucky enough to escape the attention of the Orcas and actually complete the journey. All others on board would also be liable to prosecution as accomplices. 

In practice, the sophistication and weight of the ordnance required to deter the whales effectively would be impossible for a small boat already overloaded to the gunwales to carry, and still remain afloat. Using explosives in close proximity to a small boat would probably not be a particularly good idea either....

I would predict that few would risk embarking while the Orcas were about, and the focus would quickly move back to stowing away on lorries, which is much more easily controllable by the authorities.

If the project were a success, the Greek and Italian border patrol authorities might well be interested in acquiring their own pods of trained Orcas, for deployment on the Aegean and North African migration routes. Although the embarkation areas are more geographically spread out, they do tend to focus on specific routes and departure points. Orcas are also expert direction finders, and would have no need for sophisticated GPS systems to find their way to their targets.

But how could we persuade these talented beasts to ‘up sticks’ from their Mediterranean feeding grounds and move across Biscay to the Channel, given that there isn’t exactly an abundance of tuna to be had off Calais' beaches ? Trying to herd Orcas across large sea distances would be only slightly less problematical than herding domestic cats, so a strong incentive for them to make the journey of their own accord would be required.

As David Attenborough demonstrated convincingly in one of his many excellent series recently, Orcas are especially partial to seals, (particularly if they come across them asleep on ice floes!) and take great delight in working in teams to unseat, and then devour, these unfortunate creatures.

Seal populations appear to be doing well generally such that there is currently an excess of them in some parts of the world. Fisherman often regard them as the 'vermin of the seas' due to their prodigious ability to consume large quantities of fish. Because of this, culls are necessary periodically to keep their population within sustainable limits and prevent serious depletion of fish stocks. 

The Namibian Fisheries Ministry in particular regularly carry out seal culls in order to protect their fish stocks - they would I’m sure be happy to provide plenty of material to start a new colony here, and might even assist in transporting them to their next 'summer holiday' off the French coast. Far less chance of any legal interference here also - it should prove much easier to transport seals from Africa to Europe than to move humans back in the other direction...

Once the seals had arrived, the Mediterranean Orcas would soon hear about a new supply of their favourite food on the 'marine grapevine' and make the trip themselves to investigate. A good seal hunt on a regular basis would be more enjoyable for them than the boredom of  just hoovering up tuna every day, with the extra attraction of some 'sport' with any small boats daft enough to try running the gauntlet on the cross-channel route.

The seals would be better off too, since having avoided an immediate cull at home, the wilier ones would at least have some chance to escape to ‘pastures new’ in the North Sea.

Last, but not least, neither seals nor orcas are subject to the restrictions of the ECHR – some ‘food’ for thought for the lawyers in their quest for new clients, perhaps….

We saw earlier this month (12th August - the 'glorious 12th') just how dangerous the channel crossing can be in a small, probably defective and grossly overloaded boat, with yet more trafficked lives needlessly lost within a short distance of the French coast. 

If reason prevails and government see the light, I can confidently predict the first seals will be shipped to their new feeding grounds off Dunquerque this autumn and will establish themselves over the winter in time for the summer boat season. The Orcas from Gibraltar will then surely follow, along with their colleagues currently based in Orkney and Norway.

To paraphrase that classic track from the 1984 film: 

"...Who're ya gonna call ?....GhostBoatBusters..."

Joking apart, given we have also just passed the 100,000 milestone, with several hundred crossing daily and predictions of even more small boats attempting the dangerous crossing for the remainder of this year and next, do we not owe it to these unfortunate and desperate people to break the people smugglers' business model once and for all - and save lives?

Update 12.11.23: The Gibraltar Orca 'Clan' are obviously limbering up for next summer's excursion to the Channel. Their latest exploit actually resulted in another - this time of a Polish yacht in the Gibraltar Strait off Tangier, using their usual trick of destroying the rudder...and then some. Would be illegals beware - this could be your 'fate worse than Rwanda' if you try to cross next summer in an inflatable. The Orcas are coming....

First published 7/8/23