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rel-fringed bluffs are hunters who <br /> lease the land and paddlers exploring <br /> the Neuse0River and Mark's Creek <br /> The land is not pristine; there 's <br /> 56 been a lot of cutting and mowing. "It's <br /> got great potential to be restored into <br /> some meaningful wildlife habitat," <br /> Costa says . <br /> Or it might go the way of the rest of <br /> Wake. The planned Outer Loop high- <br /> way and U.S. 64 bypass will cut close <br /> to the area. Fingers of development, <br /> such as 'the Riverwood and Ole Mill <br /> Stream subdivisions near Clayton, <br /> are - already poking into this forest. <br /> The Wake commissioners ' chair- <br /> ' woman, Linda Coleman, wants more <br /> development, not less, in . eastern <br /> Wake .: Last year, however, county <br /> voters . overwhelmingly approved <br /> borrowing $ 15 million : to set aside <br /> open space. Coleman said she would <br /> await the results of several growth- <br /> related studies before deciding <br /> whether to support preservation of <br /> the open space around Shotwell . <br /> "That would probably not be the <br /> number one priority, or the number <br /> two priority, she said. "Schools and <br /> human services are running neck <br /> and neck this time" for that rank; <br /> Dixon estimated that buying the <br /> core properties in the Mark's Creek <br /> area, the Let-'Lones and the Deep <br /> Riverwoud cost $17 million, a difficult <br /> amount to raise in tight fiscal times. <br /> Still, the conservancy will keep look- <br /> ing for ways to entice property own- <br /> ers such as Dr. Joseph M. Hester of <br /> Goldsboro to sell or donate their land. <br /> In 1992, Hester bought more than <br /> a thousand acres in the Neuse Let- <br /> 'Lones simply to enjoy the foxes, fox , <br /> squirrels, bobcats and everything <br /> else that lives there. "The .greatest <br /> gift that nature ever gave to man <br /> was trees," said Hester, 82, a retired <br /> physician. <br /> Three years ago, Hester., found <br /> himself on his own land after sunset <br /> with no idea how to find his way back- <br /> to his house . He sat down to rest <br /> against a tree, determined to wait <br /> out the inky night. When the clouds <br /> drifted out of the sky, he followed the <br /> stars to reach civilization . <br /> That's what makes this woods so . <br /> different from the rest of the human <br /> crowded region, he said. "You can <br /> get lost in it. , , <br />