If you have ever worked on a sea turtle nesting beach project, then you have probably had the experience of snapping a metal tag to the trailing edge of a sea turtle’s flipper. In recent years a new genetic technique has emerged as an alternative to physical tagging.

The use of small manned aircraft to perform aerial surveys has long been a standard practice in monitoring populations of marine megafauna. The higher the eye, the more it can see. But those flights are generally costly, and engine noise can adversely affect animals’ behavior during low flybys. Small, maneuverable, inexpensive, and no louder than the hum of a beehive, drones are beginning to provide an more powerful tool for researchers conducting aerial surveys.

Recapturing sea turtles in the water requires significant resources, including watercraft, fuel, time, and people power, and it may also cause the turtles unnecessary stress. Finding a way to identify and re-identify turtles over time without the need to physically capture them could open up many possibilities for us and for hundreds of other projects that use similar techniques.

Akumal, a small town about 100 kilometers south of the well-known tourism mecca of Cancún, was the first tourist destination in Quintana Roo, and tourists flock to Akumal by the tens of thousands annually. As a result, local sea turtle populations and marine ecosystems are now threatened by the impacts of too much visitation.

In an attempt to harness Central Americans’ soccer passion for conservation purposes, a group of sea turtle researchers developed the Hawksbill Cup as a tool to shift the way coastal residents view hawksbills.

Sea turtles, like all other organisms in the natural world, carry invisible records of their biological history. Researchers simply need to know where and how to look for these records. Stable isotopes are among a growing number of intrinsic markers biologists use to extract information about organisms’ environments without having to observe their actions directly.

Coastal gillnet fisheries are some of the most common fisheries throughout the world, and they play an important role in the food security, economics, and culture of coastal communities. Yet gillnet fisheries are often problematic because of their nonselective impact on the marine environment; they incidentally capture many nontarget species.

The very word innovation excites some people and simultaneously imparts fear of the unknown in others. Throughout history, innovators have constantly been met with resistance, but those who innovate ultimately achieve success far beyond the dreams of others, and they set the stage for worldwide changes. Innovation is the future, and without it our lives would not be what they are today. The same is true for sea turtle conservation.