Three pasture types dominate the Beneke Creek Wildlife Management Area on this Roosevelt elk winter range in northwestern Oregon. In winter, elk showed a strong preference for perennial ryegrass pastures that were hayed the previous summer and fall fertilized over bentgrass pastures also hayed and fertilized or unmanaged bentgrass pastures. These perennial ryegrass pastures provided forage that met minimal requirements for digestible protein and digestible energy all winter while both bentgrass pasture types were deficient in these nutrients through winter. Improvement of bentgrass pastures by conversion to ryegrass should result in higher rates of elk reproduction and better survival of offspring. In 1973 the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife purchased bottomland pastures in the Coast Range Mountains of northwestern Oregon to provide wintering areas for Roosevelt elk (Cervus cunadensis roosevelti). The increasing demands of the public for more elk to view and harvest, combined with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s desire to maximize production of elk from these pastures, has prompted them to undertake an intensive vegetation management program on the purchased lands. The intensive management on these areas has resulted in an increase in wintering elk populations. However, no data were available on the quality of winter forage provided by the intensively managed pastures as compared to undeveloped pastures. Trainer (197 1) stated that under the stress of lactation, most Roosevelt elk cows in western Oregon were unable to maintain adequate energy reserves. During the breeding season, little evidence of ovulation was found for cows in lactation. This was related to their poor condition. During the year in which the cow was barren and dry, energy reserves were restored to a level where ovulation again occurred. Therefore, many Roosevelt elk cows produce a calf every other year, rather than yearly (Trainer 1971). Trainer further suggested that the quality of elk forage was at least in part responsible for this situation. Harper (1962) stated that overpopulation and/ or poor forage quality could have contributed to the low nutritional status of Roosevelt elk on Boyes Prairie, California. Schwartz and Mitchell (1945) blamed poor forage quality as the cause of most malnutrition deaths of Roosevelt elk on the Olympic Peninsula, Washington, since most animals examined had their paunch full of “. . . coarse and unpalatable. . .” forage. Poor winter nutrition appears to be a problem for Roosevelt elk throughout their range. Since forage quality has been accepted as a key criterion by which vegetation management practices can be judged, the objectives of this research were to determine the effects of bottomland pasture development on the nutritive values of forage for wintering Roosevelt elk and on elk preference among pastures.