"Common freshwater turtles typically begin mating between March and July," said Dr. Danielle Walkup, a research assistant professor at the Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute, in a Texas A&M AgriLife news release. "Later in the spring and early summer, they'll start moving and searching for a good nesting place."

Those who fish in Buffalo Bayou can also assume that larger fish have accumulated more toxins in their tissue over time, said Professor Haitham Mohammed, with Texas A&M University's Department of Rangeland, Wildlife and Fisheries Management. Smaller fish seen in the bayou are likely younger and therefore have less toxins than bigger fish, he said.

"This is just hard stuff here that defies quick solutions," said John Sherman, a former chief information officer at the Defense Department and the current dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. "If you rush through this, something on the national security side is going to potentially get impacted. We don’t want to put our service members in harm’s way."