Jack Miner

John Thomas Miner, 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 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), near Kingsville, Ontario. Miner's parents had emigrated 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 bricks (from a claybed 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 Pheasants. 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 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.Miner had begun 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 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 crows indicated that Miner had killed hundreds of them. [cite news
title = The Case for the Crow
work = The New York Times
page = E12
date = January 31, 1926]

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 in Essex County, Ontario, resting on a peninsula between Lake Erie to the south and 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" migratory flyways 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 Update notice to the Justice Laws site ] at laws.justice.gc.ca] 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

* "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]

* [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.