• May 18, 1992
• Vol. 37
• No. 19

Rumble in Manateeville

Singer Jimmy Buffett Takes the Audubon Society to Court in a Dispute Involving An Endangered Florida Species

PITY THE POOR MANATEES, THOSE SEA mammals that float near the surface of Florida's warm waterways like the sort of beer-bellied snorkeler Jimmy Buffett might sing about. Trailing droopy fins and a half-ton of blubber, manatees, alas, are no match for the deadly blades of speedboaters, who have helped reduce the once plentiful Trichechus manatus to a trifling thousand or so. As if those woes weren't enough, the gentle giants now find themselves caught in a rift between two of their benefactors.

Buffett, the poet laureate of Florida hedonism, best known for his 1977 hit "Margaritaville," has chaired the state's Save the Manatee Club since its inception in 1981. Now Buffett, 45, is suing the parent Florida Audubon Society for independent control of the Manatee Club, which has grown to include 30,000 members and a $700,000 annual budget, thanks largely to Buffett's innovative Adopt-a-Manatee campaign. Acting on behalf of the society, which is loath to lose the extra clout the club's membership provides, president Bernard Yokel, 62, fired the first volley in anger this March by removing Buffett's executive director, changing the locks on the Manatee Club's Orlando office and freezing its assets. In April, Buffett led a public protest, and on May Day he staged a concert near Fort Lauderdale that raised about $65,000 to fund a successor organization, the Manatee Protect ion League.

Buffett, who has objected to what he claims are the society's cozy relations with businesses he considers polluters, hopes the split won't derail his efforts to raise environmental awareness in Margaritaville. "We've got a whole new generation of native Floridians. born to people like me who moved here," he says. "These kids are our future. If we can instill in them the responsibility we were never taught, it will save us."

And, he hopes, the manatees too.