Palouse Land Trust purchases 62 acres for preservation

Palouse Land Trust has purchased 62 acres of disappearing Palouse Prairie on the south end of Paradise Ridge south of Moscow.

The trust, whose mission is to conserve the open space, scenery, wildlife habitat and water quality of the Palouse for current and future generations, bought the land earlier this month for $180,000 from two landowners who were previously married to each other, said Amy Trujillo, executive director of Palouse Land Trust.

She said the two, Dawn Edwards and August Mueller, had lived in Oregon for a few decades until Mueller died earlier this year.

“They weren’t here to manage it and felt like it was such a special place that they were willing to sell it to us at a bargain sale, which means they donated a portion of the value,” Trujillo said. “Because they were willing to donate part of that to help preserve it, we were able to protect this beautiful land.”

She said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service funded $160,000 and a private donor funded the remaining $20,000.

The native Palouse Prairie is one of the most critically endangered ecosystems in the U.S., said Trujillo. She said the remaining Palouse Prairie is mostly in areas that are too rocky or too steep to plow.

“The preservation of Palouse Prairie habitat has been one of the priorities for the land trust since the very beginning,” Trujillo said.

She said there are eight species of concern native to the Palouse Prairie ecosystem because of their dependence on native Palouse Prairie grasslands. One of those species is Spalding’s catchfly, a federally threatened flowering plant.

The Fish and Wildlife Service creates a species recovery plan for each endangered or threatened species, Trujillo said. She said the service identified key conservation areas where, if those lands can be preserved, then Spalding’s catchfly can be reintroduced to those habitats. One of those key conservation areas is the 62 acres of land the land trust recently bought.

Trujillo said the land trust also has a 160-acre conservation easement on Gormsen Butte, which is about three quarters of a mile south of the newly purchased 62 acres.

She said another goal is to expand more prairie habitat between the property and Gormsen Butte so pollinators, like native bees and other insects, can travel between the prairie remnants.