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 BobwhitQuail , 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.

 

A goose band used by Miner with his signature biblical inscription.

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.