The Northern bottlenose whale is a large solitary hunter of deep-sea squid and fish. Despite of this it can sometimes be seen close to shore. This whale is one of the best deep divers of the whales. Earlier this century it was a prised catch of whalers around Iceland, tens of thousands were hunted by foreign whalers off the Iceland coast in the last 100 years. It has now been protected since 1977 and its numbers are thought to be increasing even though Norwegians still hunt to a small degree. The oil of it' s melon was an important product and added substantially too its price, Synthetic oils have now replaced it completely.