National parks face problems in managing wild ungulates and their forage resources, including small park sizes and incomplete protection of winter ranges, absence of major predators, and influences from extenor management activities Our study focuses on the efTects of elk Cervus elaphus browsing on aspen Populus tremuloides in the elk winter range of Rocky Mountain National Park Elk can prevent successful regeneration of aspen by suckers, and increase the monality of established trees Here we quantify the efTect of elk on aspen in the elk winter range of the park particularly since the adoption of a policy of "natural regulation" in 1968 We collected a stratified-random sample of aspen cohorts m the elk winter range, and also inside two long-term exclosures In each cohort we tallied live and dead trees by diameter, recorded the height and percentage of stem surface covered by bark-stnpping, and estimated the date of regeneration of the cohort using increment cores We also tallied live and dead aspen suckers (young trees < 2 5 m tall) by height and the number of live and de

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