FRIENDS OF THE BIRDS.

Putaruru Press, Volume VI, Issue 234, 26 April 1928, Page 1

FRIENDS OF THE BIRDS.

SANCTUARY IN CANADA. A Canadian magazine recently called for a vote among its readers as to who was the greatest living Canadian. The first four names were men in political world; the fifth was Jack Miner, bird lover, in whose sanctuary in Ontario thousands of migratory birds who winter in the Southern States and spend the summer and breed in Canada, are fed and protected as they come and go.

Mr Miner, who is sixty-two years of age, runs what he calls a ‘‘one horse tile yard.” As the clay is excavated, the cavity is made into artificial ponds, in which wild birds find a haven of rest. Through his sanctuary becoming so popular with the feathered hosts, it costs him £I2OO a year to feed the birds that congregate there. He gets a subsidy of £IOO a year each from the Dominion and Provincial Governments, and makes up the balance by his lectures,, royalty from the sale of his book on birds, and donations from friends. He ha scrossed the continent five times on lecturing tours, and fills the largest halls in Canada. At Winnipeg, 13,000 listened to Mr Miner’s lecture. The little town of Kingsville, Onario, where he lives, increases its population from 2000 to 15,000 wit hvisitors and tourists who go there to see the unique sight, when the lake is alive with chicks, geese and swans. He has perfected a crowtrap, with which he has caught as many as 500 of these “nest-robbers,” as he calls them, at one catch. Letters come to him from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and many European countries, asking about his methods, so that they may be