Hunting preserve adds income diversity for west Palouse farmers

In an effort to ensure land can remain in their families, 18 landowners have banded together to bring sportsmen onto their 45,000 contiguous acres of rugged and picturesque land on the western part of the Palouse.

Blue Ridge Ranch is their effort to capitalize on the interest that sportsmen have shown in hunting and riding across their land where the Palouse hills and the Columbia Plateau meet.

Much of area, now covered in CRP grasses, has long drawn the attention of hunters and horse riders.

In 2000, after their ground was planted to CRP, Gregg and Lisa Beckley had 135 hunters knock on their door to ask permission to hunt their land.

While landowners often obliged and let hunters out onto their land, it started to become troublesome.

“A lot of these properties just started to get overrun with hunters,” said Gregg Beckley. “It started to get out of control.”

Rather than continuing to have hunters tromp across their ground for free, the group seized what they saw as a golden opportunity.

“It’s here. People are already doing it, so why not take advantage of that?” asked Beckley.

So they formed the ranch club, both to manage the hunters and to provide an additional income for their farm operations.

Landowners now sell memberships to the Blue Ridge Ranch hunting club that give deer and bird hunters access to the land.

Hunters can buy memberships in the ranch for $1,500 per person or $4,000 for a corporate membership that allows up to four hunters on the properties. Revenue from the hunters is divided among the landowners.

The club also allows for better monitoring of hunters.

Hunters will be guided through the properties by Jeff Miller, a wildlife outfitter.

A dozen people purchased memberships to hunt during this fall’s deer season - which opens Saturday - and another eight people have purchased memberships for upland bird and waterfowl season.

Neighbors in the area began meeting in 2005 to discuss ways to infuse additional sources of income into their farming operations.

“Our only options seemed like wheat or wheat or CRP,” said Beckley.

Unfortunately, commodity prices and the typically low yields of the west Palouse did not make a return to wheat farming the most attractive option.

“We were looking for an alternative to the usual method of producing $3 wheat, taking it to town and begging them to give you something for it,” said Beckley.

From 2007 to 2009, the Beckleys were part of a WSU research project funded by the William D. Ruckelshaus Foundation. The project, called Beefing up the Palouse, studied the feasibility of using CRP ground to raise cattle.

In addition to opening up an entry into the organic foods marketplace, said Beckley, the project showed them how livestock can help sculpt and manage their landscape and improve habitat for wildlife.

Rotating cattle on different paddocks of ground at specific times of the year led to a dramatic increase in wildlife population on their property and created a perfect territory for bird and deer hunting.

“By utilizing that we’ve been able to create some phenomenal habitat for deer and upland birds,” said Beckley.

The Beckleys planted hundreds of pheasants on the property that have since flourished on the ranch’s grassy fields.

The pheasant cover has already drawn in bird fanatics.

Northwest Shoot to Retrieve Foundation, a regional bird-dog group, used the Blue Ridge Ranch for a regional field trial. Beckley said the group was excited about the size of the ranch because it allowed them to run more clinics.

This spring, a group of endurance horse riders from all across the northwest booked the ranch so its horsemen could go on rides of up to 75 miles.

Eventually, the group would like to expand the ranch westward into Whitman County, where wetter climates make for better bird habitat.