The IWC may have implemented a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986, but they also included a great big loophole: scientific permit whaling.

Scientific permits that allow for killing whales for supposed scientific research have been included in the language of the International Convention on the Regulation of Whaling since 1946, when the Convention and the IWC were both formed. The moratorium enacted in 1986 did nothing to change this.

Not only does the scientific permit whaling allow whales to be killed for so-called research, the program requires that the whale meat be used. Worse, the approval of a scientific whaling permit is entirely up to the nation that submitted the permit. In other words, Japan can approve Japan’s own permits for scientific whaling. Then, Japan is required to use those whales, once they are killed for “research.”

All of this means that scientific whaling is nothing more than an open invitation to pro-whaling nations, and an opportunity for their continued whaling on a commercial level. For example, Japan’s scientific whaling program killed hundreds of whales in 2009 alone.

Japan — and other nations that use or have used scientific permits to kill whales — insists that whales must be hunted and killed to learn more about them. This is ridiculous. In an era of DNA sampling and remote sensing, scientists do not need to kill whales to learn about them. Samples can be collected from whales’ skin and blubber for DNA analysis, and their fecal matter for hormone and toxin levels. Now, scientists can even collect samples when whales exhale through their blowholes, allowing for detection of pathogens.

If any doubt remains, consider this: The only nations that insist whales must be killed to be understood are also the nations most interested in eating whales.