Jon Lien
American conservationist
Ordin Jon Lien (19 March 1939 - 14 April 2010), nicknamed “the Whale Man”, was a Canadian conservationist, researcher, professor, and organic farmer who founded Memorial University of Newfoundland’s Whale Research Group. From the late 1970s to the early 2000s, Lien released whales and other cetaceans entrapped in fishing nets along the coast of Newfoundland, and innovated now-widely-used whale rescue techniques. He invented The Lien Pinger, an acoustic alarm which is attached to fishing nets to reduce whale entrapments.
Biography
Early life and education
Jon Lien was born in Clark, South Dakota on 19 March 1939. His parents were Ordin and Alvera Lien. He was around animals from a young age between fishing, working on his uncle’s farm, and raising chickens in his parents’ garage.
Lien moved to Northfield, Minnesota in 1957 to pursue arts and literature at St. Olaf College. During his time at St. Olaf, he worked for the Wilderness Canoe Base.
“Jon Lien” enters the record as american conservationist. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Lien, American and conservationist can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 2, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q107528246. VIAF identifies the subject as 6413733. The Library of Congress control number is n86074134. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1939, 2010 and 1957.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jon Lien” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.