He invented The Lien Pinger, an acoustic alarm which is attached to fishing nets to reduce whale entrapments.
He and Judy bought a six-acre lot of land in Portugal Cove St. Philips and hand-built their house with recycled wood from an old warehouse in downtown St. Johns and the office of the inoperative Bell Island mine.
[1] At MUN, he taught animal behaviour, ocean studies and psychology, and was originally researching seabirds around the coast of Newfoundland with his students.
[2] In the late 1970s, Lien received a call about a group of whales trapped in ice in Halls Bay, Newfoundland.
[1] Over his career, Lien is credited with saving over 500 marine animals, publishing 7 books and guides, over 300 research papers on whales, seabirds, fishing by-catch, turtles, and more, and many more educational articles.
[6] In 2011, Jon (posthumously) and Judy were presented with the Gerritt Loo Award honouring outstanding contribution to the organic farming community.
[8] Lien's health gradually declined after a truck accident in 2002, and he was hospitalized in 2007, requiring full time nursing care.