Traditional methods call for researchers to attach a tag to turtle flippers to track them, but studies show that flipper tagging can miss up to 20 percent of all females that nest on a beach each season. Researchers also know that females nest on several different beaches, which can cause miscalculations about the turtle population. They can't monitor all of the beaches where the turtles nest at night, and many of the flipper tags get lost eventually, Nairn said. But much like a human fingerprint, the genetic signature obtained using the DNA method is unique for each individual turtle.

Not only does this DNA information identify the turtle mother, but it also allows researchers to speculate on population recovery, including how many nests are being laid, how often turtles nest and how many females are laying eggs. Over the first two years of the study, UGA identified around 800 nesting mothers along the Georgia coast, and researchers continue to track those turtles, including where they've nested over the years and how often they've returned to nest.