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21. A killer whale was insured by Lloyd’s against somewhat unusual possibilities
In 1965 an orca, then more commonly referred to as a killer whale, was captured in the Northern Pacific near the coastal town of Namu, British Columbia. He had entangled himself in a salmon net. The orca was purchased by the Seattle Marine Aquarium whose owner named the animal Namu, and arranged to have his new prize delivered to the aquarium for display. The cost of transporting Namu to Seattle was high, as was his daily upkeep, since he ate approximately 400 pounds of fish, nearly all of its salmon, each day for the year or so he survived in captivity. A female companion was found for him later in 1965, named Shamu.
Lloyd’s was approached to insure Namu before he was even transported to Seattle, and the policy covered a wide variety of catastrophic possibilities. One, which seems improbable at first glance, was a successful rescue operation carried out by other orcas as he was being transported by sea to the aquarium in Seattle. Farfetched perhaps, but after Namu died recordings of his calls allowed researchers to identify him as a member of a well-known and very large pod known as C-1, one of the North Resident Pods. Researchers believed that the pod’s matriarch, known as C-5, was his mother. Whether Namu could have called his mother for help as he was transferred to Seattle will never be known.