Editing North Sea (section)

=== Whaling ===
Whaling was an important economic activity from the 9th until the 13th century for Flemish whalers.<ref name="auto">{{cite web |url=http://www.vliz.be/imisdocs/publications/233490.pdf |title=Cetaceans and Belgian whalers, A brief historical review |work=Belgian whalers |access-date=13 March 2015 |archive-date=2 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402145444/http://www.vliz.be/imisdocs/publications/233490.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> The medieval Flemish, Basque and Norwegian whalers who were replaced in the 16th century by Dutch, English, Danes, and Germans, took massive numbers of whales and dolphins and nearly depleted the right whales. This activity likely led to the extinction of the Atlantic population of the once common [[grey whale]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Lindquist|first1=O.|title=The North Atlantic grey whale (Escherichtius [sic] robustus): An historical outline based on Icelandic, Danish-Icelandic, English and Swedish sources dating from ca 1000 AD to 1792.|date=2000|publisher=Occasional papers 1. Universities of St Andrews and Stirling, Scotland. 50 p.}}</ref> By 1902 the whaling had ended.<ref name="auto"/> After being absent for 300 years a single grey whale returned in 2010,<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Scheinin|first1=Aviad P|last2=Aviad|first2=P.|last3=Kerem|first3=Dan|title=Gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) in the Mediterranean Sea: anomalous event or early sign of climate-driven distribution change?|journal=Marine Biodiversity Records|date=2011|volume=2|page=e28|doi=10.1017/s1755267211000042|doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 |bibcode=2011MBdR....4E..28S }}</ref> it probably was the first of many more to find its way through the now ice-free [[Northwest Passage]].