How modern science changed the way we study whales

Today, there is much wider recognition of the positive role whales play in healthy oceans. Their movements, feeding, and nutrient cycling contribute to ocean productivity and support marine ecosystems.

A legal turning point

The weakness of the argument for so-called scientific whaling came under international scrutiny in 2014 before the International Court of Justice.

Australia brought a case challenging Japan's Antarctic whaling programme, and IFAW helped support preparations through legal consultations with international experts and by documenting the history of scientific whaling.

After years of proceedings, the International Court of Justice ruled in 2014 that Japan's whaling programme was "not for purposes of scientific research." The ruling was clear and had immediate consequences: Japan stopped whaling in the Southern Ocean.

"For us, that was a turning point," says Andreas Dinkelmeyer, campaign manager at IFAW. "For the first time, it was recognised at the highest international level that so-called scientific whaling had no real scientific basis."

The decision reinforced what advances in whale research were already demonstrating. Scientists did not need to kill whales to understand them.

Studying living whales

Today, scientists use a growing range of non-lethal methods to study whales, including acoustic monitoring, photo identification, genetic sampling, and long-term observation. These methods provide insights into whale behaviour, communication, population health, distribution, and migration. They also offer a far more complete understanding of living whales over time than studies based on dead animals ever could.

IFAW helped drive this shift early on.

With the Song of the Whale, IFAW demonstrated how non-lethal whale research could work in practice. Designed to operate quietly. and minimise disturbance to animals, the research vessel can conduct acoustic surveys at night and operate in challenging conditions. This allows scientists to follow whales over longer periods of time, document their movements, identify important habitats, and gather evidence that can inform conservation decisions.

For McLanaghan, the work is inseparable from the goal of protecting whales.

"I feel very committed to what we do. I believe we make a small but important contribution. Our research helps us better understand how to protect whales such as critically endangered North Atlantic right whales. That's exactly why I do this work."

Early expeditions by the Song of the Whale, including in the Azores, helped demonstrate the potential of non-lethal research at a time when some governments continued to argue that whale had to be killed to understand them.

The shift towards studying living whales was part of a broader transformation. As scientists developed better ways to learn from whales without killing them, coastal communities were also demonstrating that living whales could support livelihoods and local economies.

More valuable alive than dead