Jack Miner
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/* Legacy */
[[Image:Jack Miner.jpg|thumb|Jack Miner]]
'''John Thomas Miner, [[Order of the British Empire|OBE]]''' ([[April 10]], [[1865]] – [[November 3]], [[1944]]), or "'''Wild Goose Jack'''," was a Canadian [[conservationist]] called by some the "father" of North American [[conservationism]].
==Biography==
Born John Thomas Miner in [[Westlake, Ohio|Dover Center (Westlake), Ohio]], he and his family moved in 1878 to Canada. Their home would be a free homestead at Gosfield South Township (part of [[Essex County, Ontario|Essex County]]), near [[Kingsville, Ontario]]. Miner's parents had [[emigrate]]d from [[Leicestershire]], England in the mid-1800s, and John Thomas was the second of ten children. He did not receive a formal education, and was illiterate until the age of 33. In the 1880s he worked as a trapper and hunter to supplement his family's business income in the manufacture of tiles and [[brick]]s (from a [[clay]]bed on their land).
Miner's first experiments with conservation took the form of erecting brushwood shelters and providing grain to [[Bobwhite Quail]], which seemed to have difficulty surviving the winter. He also raised [[Ringnecked Pheasant]]s. At last, he noticed that [[Canadian geese]] were stopping at ponds on his land in spring, on their migration northward.
In 1904, Miner created a pond on his farm with seven clipped, tame [[Canadian Goose|Canadian Geese]], hoping to attract wild geese. It would take four years of effort before the wild geese finally began to settle at Miner's sanctuary. In 1911 and onwards, geese and ducks were arriving in large numbers, and Miner increased the size of his pond. In 1913, the entire homestead had become a bird sanctuary. The provincial government of Ontario provided funding for Miner's project, allowing him to add [[evergreen]] trees and shrubs, and to dig more ponds and surround them with sheltering groves.
[[Image:Jack Miner goose band.jpg|thumb|250px|A goose band used by Miner with his signature biblical inscription.]]
Miner had begun [[Bird banding|banding]] ducks and geese in August, 1909. He banded his first duck with a hand-stamped aluminum band, which was recovered five months later in [[Anderson, South Carolina]], constituting the first complete banding record. His bird tags quoted [[scripture]]: "''Keep yourselves in the love of God—Jude 1-21''" and "''With God all things are possible—Mark 10-27''". Thousands of subsequent bird taggings over the following years produced copious data that would help to establish the U.S. [[Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918]], representing an agreement between six nations making it unlawful to capture, sell, or kill certain migratory birds.
In 1910, Miner began a lifelong career of lecturing. He spoke about wildlife conservation and the need for the establishment of sanctuaries and wildlife refuges, and told of his banding, research, and habitat preservation methods. He encouraged junior [[Birdwatching|bird clubs]] and the building of bird boxes, and expressed his concern about the declining ecological condition of the [[Great Lakes]].
Despite his conservation ethic, Miner called for the extermination of some species based on their non-[[monogamous]] reproductive habits. He disliked [[predatory]] animals, and a ''New York Times'' article of the late 1920s defending [[crow]]s indicated that Miner had killed hundreds of them.<ref>{{cite news
|title = The Case for the Crow
|work = [[The New York Times]]
|page = E12
|date = [[January 31]], [[1926]]
}}</ref>
==Legacy==
The Jack Miner Bird Sanctuary was one of the first of its kind in North America, and remains in existence today. It is located near [[Kingsville, Ontario|Kingsville]] in [[Essex County, Ontario]], resting on a peninsula between [[Lake Erie]] to the south and [[Lake Saint Clair (North America)|Lake Saint Clair]] to the north. It is ten miles away from the well-known birding destination [[Point Pelee National Park]], which Miner helped to designate as a [[national park]] in 1918. (The "Atlantic" and "Mississippi" [[Bird migration|migratory]] [[flyway]]s converge in this area.)
Jack Miner died in 1944. He had been presented with the [[Order of the British Empire]] (OBE) by [[King George VI]] in 1943 "for the greatest achievement in conservation in the [[British Empire]]." In his lifetime, he had banded over 50,000 wild ducks and 40,000 Canada geese. Several U.S. newspapers rated him among the best-known men on the continent, among [[Henry Ford]], [[Thomas Edison]], [[Charles Lindbergh]] and [[Eddie Rickenbacker]]. In 1947, Canada's ''National Wildlife Week Act'' [http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/W-10/87473.html] passed unanimously to be observed the week of Jack Miner's birth, April 10th each year.
A school in the name of Jack Miner was created in 2001 in [[Whitby, Ontario]], administered by the [[Durham District School Board]]. There is also a Jack Miner Senior Public School in Toronto, in what used to be the city of Scarborough.
==References==
<references/>
* "Brother to the birds: a sanctuary in Ontario", ''[[The Times]]'', [[September 28]], [[1929]], pp. 13-14.
* ''Outdoor Canada''. Markham: Summer 2005. Vol. 33, Iss. 5.
==External links==
*[http://www.jackminer.com/ The Jack Miner Bird Sanctuary]
[[Category:Canadian conservationists|Miner, Jack]]
[[Category:Canadian environmentalists|Miner, Jack]]
[[Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire|Miner, Jack]]
[[Category:American immigrants to Canada|Miner, Jack]]
[[Category:English Canadians|Milner, Jack]]
[[Category:People from Essex County, Ontario|Miner, Jack]]
[[Category:1865 births|Miner, Jack]]
[[Category:1944 deaths|Miner, Jack]]
[[Category:People from Cuyahoga County, Ohio|Miner, Jack]]
*[http://besustainable.com/greenmajority/2008/02/01/tgm-70/ Green Majority web site] Downloadable interview with Robert and Kirk Miner, grandchildren of Jack Miner. February 2, 2008.