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...