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I 4 Vanicek and Kramer 1969; and Vanicek, Kramer and Franklin 1970). Researchers are in agreement that the changes in the Colorado River system fish fauna are the result of 1) major changes in physical and chemical river conditions due to impoundments and water-use practices and 2) introduction of non-native fish species. As unimpounded, unpolluted and relatively undiverted components of the system, the Yampa and White Rivers repre- sent refugia from the degraded conditions of the Green River below Flaming Gorge Reservoir and the reaches of the Colorado River affected by Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams. In 1975, the Bureau of Land Management, recogni=ing the poten- tial for further alterations of the system by coal develop- ment, initiated a study of the aquatic communities of the White and Yampa Rivers. The objectives of the study were ].) to collect and identify fish and macroinvertebrates from stations on both rivers; 2) to characterize, in the fisheries study, the distribution, age and growth, food habits and life histories of the major fish groups; and 3) to monitor habitat and water quality parameters. The distribution and description of the catostomid com,)unity of the Yampa River was of special interest because of the abundance of suckers, the paucity of recent studies and the extent of hybridization between introduced and native suckers. Work proceeded and is presented in this report in three phases: 1) field collection and