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1 1 1 1 1 ~~ 1 1 1 Water Diversion Project on the Little Snake River) could adversely impact the endangered fish fauna throughout the Green River basin. Potential conflicts between survival of rare and endangered fishes indigenous in the Yampa River, and development of water projects in that system, prompted multi-agency investigations in the late 1970's. Bureau of Reclamation (BR), Fish and Wildlife Service (r^WS), and the National Park Service (NPS) initiated a study in 1980-1981 to obtain information for the formulation of Biological Opinions under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act, an~i also to obtain instream flow recommendations for possible water rights acquisition in Dinosaur National Monument. This work resulted in several reports including: Archer and Tyus (1984), and miller et al. (1932, 1983). Colorado Division of Wildlife (CROW) and FWS have cooperated in cond~icting rare and endangered fish studies in the Yampa River since the late 1970's (Archer and Tyus 1984, Haynes and Muth 1984, Miller et al. 1982, Tyus et al. 1937, and Wick et al. 1981, 1983, 1985). The Biology Subcommittee of the multi-agency upper Colorado River basin Coordinating Committee reviewed existing data and produced a "Rare and Endangered Colorado River Fishes Sensitive Areas" report in 1984 (UCRBCC 1984). This report and other studies confirmed the importance of the Yampa River to the continued survival of rare and endangered fishes in the Green River basin. The requirements c)i these fishes for large areas of hab.ttat throughout the Colorado River basin emphasizes the need for multi-agency cooperation in management and protection. Identification of important river reaches and delineation of sensitive 1 areas (UCRBCC 1984) is a critical first-step far protection of rare and endangered fishes. However, such steps alone do not insure tong-term recovery 4