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.

Born John Thomas Miner in Dover Township (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.

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.

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.

Subsequently, in October of the same year, Jack Miner received a letter from the Hudson's Bay Company in Moose Factory, complete with his tag.

He disliked predatory animals, and a New York Times article of the late 1920s defending crows indicated that Miner had killed hundreds of them.

Miner's faith played a central role in shaping his ideas about conservation and more generally, the natural world, by working out of a creationist foundation.

In a posthumously published article, Miner explicitly rejects evolutionary biology, ascribing to a literal interpretation of Biblical scripture.

[8] Drawing from Christian scripture, Miner came to form a worldview situating humans as holding dominion over the natural world.

"[9] In this sense, for Miner, humans were charged with playing an active and protective role in conservation and ecological preservation.

He viewed natural and biological relationships as consisting of a moral element, an idea that is illustrated in his classification of animals based on perceived human characteristics.

This group included natural predators, whom he described as being "cold-blooded," "cannibals," (when referring to predatory birds) and "murderers.

He describes the delivery of trapped live crows to gun clubs to be used for target shooting, a practice which he suggests as a punishment for their "murdering" of young quail and sparrows.

Although his son claims that Jack was the first person to band birds in North America,[14] it had been introduced by American Leon J. Cole several years earlier.

Indeed, in spite of external pressure, the Jack Miner Migratory Bird Foundation did not adopt the standardized methods until after his death.

Several U.S. newspapers rated him among the best-known men on the continent, among Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Charles Lindbergh and Eddie Rickenbacker.

The Town of Kingsville Ontario celebrates the life and legacy of Jack Miner in an Annual Fall Migration Festival.