Abstract. – In general, the fish community of the White River basin has been poorly studied.  The first documentation of White River species didn’t occur until the mid twentieth century.  Similarly, the aquatic habitats and fish assemblages of Badlands National Park (BNP) have never been officially surveyed with the White River being one of the few habitats that exist within the park boundary.  This is unfortunate due to the fact that the basin is one of the few remaining watersheds in the nation with little anthropogenic disturbances and home to a fish community composed primarily of native fauna with several rare species.  One of which is the sturgeon chub, Macrhybopsis gelida, a state threatened species in South Dakota.  In order to evaluate the relatively unknown aspects of the inhabitants of the White River basin this project was composed of several studies the first of which was completing an inventory of aquatic communities and habitats within BNP.  During the summers of 2006 and 2007 a total of 2,855 individual fish at nine sites were sampled on the White River near and within BNP.  The fish community was dominated by red shiner and flathead chub with relative abundances of 27% and 56%, respectively.  We collected 88 sturgeon chub from the White River representing three percent of the fish community a one percent decrease since 2001. Only the largemouth bass were found in the wildlife watering ponds (four ponds were fishless); western silvery minnow and plains minnow were the only species in Sage Creek.  In BNP proper a total of eight fish species, five amphibians, and one reptile were documented in aquatic habitats.  The second aspect to this project was to detail the population characteristics of sturgeon chub, fish collections were made on the White and Cheyenne Rivers, South Dakota.  Catch-per-unit effort was identical in both systems at 0.06 individuals per m².  Sex ratios of males to females were 1:3 and 1:1 for the Cheyenne and White Rivers, respectively.  Gonadosomatic indexes were calculated for mature females at 12.36 for the Cheyenne River population and 12.28 for White River population.  Diet of both populations was dominated by family Simulidae comprising 92-93% of the stomach contents.  The weight-length relationship can be explained by the model log10(weight) = 2.99*log10(total length) – 5.12.  Multimodel inference indicates that the model averaged parameter estimates for k = 0.34, t₀ = -1.76, and L_∞ = 97.84 are best explained by the von Bertalanffy and Richards growth models.  Comparison of growth rates indicates slower growth in the White River population than other populations from the region.