All unmanned vehicles weighing more than half a pound (i.e. drones) will need to be registered with the government by mid-February.

The mandate is a preventive safety measure, according to the FAA. The goal is to keep collisions between drones and airplanes to a minimum. Except the number of collisions between the two flying objects is currently zero, while the number of collisions between planes and turtles is 198.

No mandates have been made for a turtle registry or keeping the animals off runways and away from airports, however.

>> Read more trending stories

Economist and technologist Eli Dourado fears the FAA's focus may be in the wrong place. He and his collaborator, Sam Hammond, analyzed the dataset of plane and wildlife strikes finding "very revealing" figures, he told PopSci.

"Planes hit objects all the time," he told the website via email. "Meanwhile, there still have been no confirmed collisions with drones in the United States," he said.

Click here to read more.