Scientific Whaling: a brief overview

Scientific whaling is the harvesting, or killing, or whales for scientific research, and is permitted under the IWC (International Whaling Commission). An example is Japan's whaling industry: the whole thing is run under the concept of scientific killing of whales. The importance of this is that the Japanese then sell the whale meat for profit, while the international scientific community agrees that lethal research of whales is completely unnecessary and sometimes counterproductive. In terms of broader environmental politics, scientific whaling is an example of how a clause in a treaty can be exploited by parties under the pretext of improving knowledge about the subject.