The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 53

The Orlando Sentinel The week ahead for singles Calendar, E-3 Thursday, February 23, 1984 A breed a gets new ill wwil m-wn t'mmJjtf l'i iin'in I ilimillMM immimh loel Holston is- Busch Gardens zoo participating in plan to save endangered giraffes ELEVISION By Jeff Kunerth OF THE SENTINEL STAFF III I I To the Romans, the tall, graceful animal with the striking patchwork hide resembled a spotted camel, so they named it "camelopar dalis." A one-month roundup of the reticulated giraffes was completed recently by the International Animal Exchange. The giraffe has learned to live with misunderstandings such as this. Thought to be a beast of great neck but no voice, the giraffe nonetheless does talk in low, soft sounds and moans. Considered a swift but timid animal, the giraffe packs so much power in its front and hind legs that it can kill a man with a single kick. But the giraffe is the victim of more than misunderstanding.

Inbreeding and crossbreeding among the four subspecies of giraffes in American zoos have blurred some of the breeds' distinctive features. And in their native Kenya, the giraffes are being pushed aside, captured and killed by ranching concerns. The plight of the giraffe in America and abroad has prompted a million-dollar undertaking by the Busch Gardens zoo in Tampa to save from certain death about two dozen reticulated giraffes considered the most distinctive breed of giraffe. A one-month roundup of the giraffes was completed last week by the International Animal Exchange, a group that assists in saving endangered animals and is supported by such celebrities as Stefanie Powers. Supervising the early stages of the giraffe capture was Jerry Lentz, Busch Gardens Please see GIRAFFES, E-4 ASSOCIATED PHESS Kevin Hunt (left) attempts to snare reticulated giraffe; Don Hunt (right) supervises capture of a giraffe in Kenya.

ovic review Billy Joel delights crowd with concert of hit songs 'Lassiter' set of cliches dressed to go nowhere on-native species lbject of PBS show begins with the queer sight of blacktailed jack rabbits hopping around in the shades of rising jumbo jets at Miami ternational Airport. It ends with otage of a growing colony of esus monkeys in the woods ound Silver Springs. In be-een, it presents a parade of 3rida's non-native flora and fau-that is sometimes amusing, jre often alarming. The program, an hourlong titled Jet Set Wildlife, is rt of PBS' often awesome series irure. Jet Set Wildlife had its tionwide airing Sunday night at when the competition was anni-atingly heavy (in the TV jungle, 5 not survival of the fittest, but the most promoted).

But, as would have it, WMFE-Chan-1 24 is repeating the program light at 7, when there's little of mpelling interest in opposition. "The subtropical climate that ikes Florida ideal for human lidays means that almost any uit or animal that can hitch a le here will survive," explains stnarrator David Page near start of the documentary, lich was filmed last year by a itish Broadcasting Corp. natural story unit. Alien species have arrived alive a variety of ways, the documen-ry shows. Twenty-nine exotic ecies of tropical fish have some-w escaped the aquariums for lich they were originally im-rted and established them-lves in Florida, often driving native fish.

Exotic birds, im-rted by the pet trade, likewise multiplying in the wild and reatening native species. The Brazilian nine-banded ar-idillo, according to Page, "fell a circus truck" and a good ing, too, since there are lots of azilian ants around for it to eat. The aforementioned jack rab-ts' ancestors escaped in the 40s from the South Florida dog icks that imported them to help ain greyhounds. The Silver irings monkeys now number-g several hundred descend monkeys that were brought )m India to be "extras" in the 30s Tarzan movies. Though less intriguing to watch an the monkeys or the notori-is "walking" catfish, non-indig-ous plants are proliferating just rapidly and may pose a worse reat to Florida's ecological bal-ice.

Most viewers will be somewhat miliar with the lake- and ream-choking hydrilla and wa-r hyacinth plants. Jet Set Wild-e looks at both problem plants and at Walt Disney World's ex-(riments using water hyacinths purify waste water. Another gment focuses on the Brazilian spper (or Florida holly), one of any plants that has gone literal- and figuratively wild after be-g introduced to the state for or-imental purposes. This one is 'errunning sections of the Ever-ades National Park, and it's so nacious that a minimum of ree burnings are required to kill The documentary suggests that ntroduced" species pose a seri-is long-term threat to Florida's jriculture, commerce and health, ow, says a Florida Atlantic biologist, we're playing cological roulette." The local circuit: Steve Wol-ird, the WCPX-Channel 6 an-lorman who was demoted from ightly co-anchoring to the week-id shift a few months back when le station underwent manage-lents changes, has found bigger-me employment. Starting April he'll become an anchor of Alive i Five, an hourlong, feature-ori-ited newscast on WEWS-TV in leveland, the nation's ninth larg-market.

Wolford, 26, will do is last WCPX newscast on Mar. I. He said the station had been gracious" in consenting to re-ase him from his contract. listings, E-p By Jay Boyar SENTINEL MOVIE CRITIC 'Lassiter' Cast: Tom Selleck, Jane Seymour, Lauren Hutton, Bob Hoskins Direction: Roger Young Screenplay: David Taylor Cinematography: Gil Taylor Theaters: Seminole Plaza, Fashion Square Industry rating: (restricted) Reviewer's evaluation: he turned to face those off stage left who, until then, could only see his back. "Obviously, Disney did not design this room." Clad in a white shirt, red tie, dark pants and jacket and white tennis shoes, Joel, 34, looked the part of the feisty New Yorker.

He Music review Reviewing key excellent, good, average, poor, awful By Richard Defendorf OF THE SENTINEL STAFF They are one big, happy family keyboardist-singer Billy Joel, his 10 or so backup musicians and even his road crew, who entertained a sellout crowd at the Orange County ConventionCivic Center in Orlando for nearly two hours Tuesday evening. And though the concert began some 40 minutes late (presumably to allow those of the 10,596 ticket-holders who were stranded in heavy traffic at the concert's scheduled start to get to their seats), Joel had, after only a few minutes of music, firmly reingra-tiated himself with those he had kept waiting. "Welcome to Billy he said after warming up on the piano with three songs, including a letter-perfect rendition of "My Life." "You people sitting behind me, I have to apologize" he added as London of 1939. The British cops and the FBI want to get the gems, which the Nazis plan to use to finance Hitler's European and South American espionage network. Inspector Becker (Bob Hoskins) of Scotland Selleck's dapper Lassiter E-8 Yard and Agent Breeze (Joe Re-galbuto) of the FBI figure that Lassiter (Selleck), an American thief living in London, is the man for the job.

Getting the gems involves getting past Countess Kari von Fur-sten (Lauren Hutton) and her Nazi goons. Helping Lassiter are his girlfriend Sara (Jane Seymour) and a car thief named Smoke (Ed Lauter). Also on Las-siter's side, presumably, are some of the finest haberdashers in Great Britain. Now it's the pin stripe, now, it's the tweed. Then come the herringbone jacket, the wool sweater and the tux.

Tom Selleck changes clothes so often in Lassiter that he might have been posing for a layout in Gentlemen's Quarterly. Actually, aside from some occasional nudity, the wardrobe changes are the most interesting thing in Lassiter. Near the middle of the movie, to take an especially dramatic example, Selleck slips into an outfit that you'll never see on the GQ guys: a woman's silk robe with furry sleeves. But Lassiter isn't about trans-vestitism, it's about diamonds. In particular, it's about $10 million worth of diamonds that are kept at the German embassy in the spent most of his time vigorously playing his piano, some time on electronic keyboards and, during a few songs, he just sang into a microphone.

But he played up to the members of the audience some of whom were old enough to be his parents simply by singing his hits. Certainly for Joel there is no dearth of original material. The sheer volume of melodic, humma-ble tunes that he has recorded since the release in 1973 of Piano Lassiter is the first feature film to be directed by Roger Young, whose idea of moviemaking seems to be to cram a bunch of cinematic cliches together and hope for the best. The movie's star, Tom Selleck, is known mainly for his work on television's Magnum, P.I., and for being the American male most Please see LASSITER, E-8 Please see JOEL, E-2 How does your lake rate? A limnologist can tell you i By Jeff Kunerth OF THE SENTINEL STAFF Lake Howell, Seminole County 62 Lake Ivanhoe, Orange County 62 Lake Monroe, Volusia County 59 Lake Underhill, Orange County 59 Lake Washington, Brevard 59 Lake Kissimmee, Osceola County 58 Lake Eola, Orange County 56 Lake Yale, Lake County 55 Lake Maitland, Orange County 55 Lake Baldwin, Orange County 52 Lake Sue, Orange County 50 Lake Killarney, Orange County 48 Lake Triplet, Seminole County 46 Lake Conway, Orange County 39 Lake Buena Vista, Orange County 36 Lake Butler, Orange County 33 Crystal Lake, Seminole County 27 Lake Sheen, Orange County 25 Lake Kathryn, Seminole County 20 Holly Lake, Lake County 16 tent, the lake with the severest problems (based on one study) was Banana Lake in Seminole County, which received a 124 rating. The lake with the fewest problems, also based on one study, was Lake Theresa in Orange County with a minus-15.

Any lake with a rating of 60 or above has troubles, the university limnologists say. Here's how they rate some of Central Florida's lakes: Lake Weston, Orange County 93 Lake Beauclair, Lake County 87 Lake Apopka, Orange County 86 Lake Jessup, Seminole County 83 Lake Dora, Lake County 81 Lake Eustis, Lake County 72 Turkey Lake, Orange County 69 Lake Tohopekaliga, Osceola County 68 Lake Lucerne, Orange County 68 Lake Mary Jane, Orange County 62 There's an occupational pastime that limnologists like to play. It's called rate the lakes. Limnologists are scientists involved in the study of lakes, ponds and streams. They talk like this: "Least absolute value regression is preferred in cases where the data are widely scattered, since it is less influenced by outlier data points." Much of a limnologist's time spent rating the lakes involves inventing the rules for evaluating the condition of a lake.

One limnologist's rules are often dismissed or. challenged by other limnologists, who have their own ideas about how best to rate a lake. The result is that few limnologists agree on the rules, but they all like to play the game. Rating lakes does have its rewards. To qualify for federal funds under the 1972 Water Pollution Control Act, a state must classify and rank its lakes.

To that end, members of the University of Florida's Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences have completed an $86,000 study that includes the rating of 573 of Florida's 7,712 freshwater lakes. Under their rules, which rate a lake according to its biological and chemical con.