 By far the most egregious, though, were the right whales.As all species of right whales had been protected from commercial harvesting since 1935, they could only be taken for very limited scientific permits; the Soviets took 11 of these under the permit loophole during North Pacific whaling years, and did not report taking any illegally.Nevertheless, from 1963–1969, Soviet whalers killed an estimated 670 right whales in places where they were apparently recovering well from earlier whaling