Birds and Glass: An Important Conservation Issue
MEETING FOR THE WEEK OF June 8, 2026
This Meeting at a Glance:
Program: Birds and Glass: An Important Conservation Issue
Speaker: Daniel Klem, Jr.
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Ringing the Rotary Bell to start our eClub Meeting
Keith Marsh - Member
WEEKLY FUNNY WITH SHAGS
We believe laughter is an important part of life, and we should all make time to laugh a little. This segment of our meeting is meant to tickle you just enough. These funnies are curated by member Steven "Shags" Shagrin!
What did the green grape say to the purple grape?
BREATHE!!!
Inspiration
For several years, the World Bank has run a program called the Human Capital Project. It involves using data to help "deliver impact at scale," assess opportunities and challenges, and provide hope for those seeking a better future. Learn more at: https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/human-capital
LEARN SOMETHING NEW
Why Popcorn Explodes into Different Shapes
Mini Pressure Cookers!
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PROGRAM: Birds and Glass: An Important Conservation Issue
SPEAKER: Daniel Klem, Jr.
We bring you a new program every week on innovation, entrepreneurship, and education and how they contribute to service to others.
Except for habitat destruction, collisions with sheet glass and plastic in residential, commercial, and educational buildings cause the deaths of more birds than any other human-associated avian mortality factor. The toll is estimated in the billions worldwide. Conservation, ethical, and legal reasons justify preventing these unintended and unwanted fatalities that responsible human action can ideally eliminate. This compelling topic has implications for architecture, development, engineering, business and economics, law, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology.
Our speaker, Daniel Klem, Jr., is the Sarkis Acopian Professor of Ornithology and Conservation Biology at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Among other diverse avian investigations, for 52 years (more than half a century) and continuing to the present, he studies, writes, and teaches about the threat that sheet glass and plastic pose to birds. No other scientist comprehensively has studied and published research results documenting and evaluating the means to prevent this human-associated avian mortality factor. He is motivated by available and growing evidence that bird-window collisions are an important wildlife conservation, building industry, legal, and animal welfare issue for birds and people worldwide. His continuing goal is to make the human-built environment safe for birds.
His latest contributions explaining and providing solutions for the window threat to birds is a new book (2021): Solid Air, Invisible Killer: Saving Billions of Birds from Windows, and two recently published scientific peer-reviewed articles in the Wilson Journal of Ornithology: (2024) Evidence, consequences, and angle of strike of bird-window collisions that quantitatively reveals that minimally 1.28 billion to 3.46 billion birds annually are killed striking windows in the U.S. alone, billions worldwide, and (2025) Bird-window collisions: A critical review that offers the most updated comprehensive summary on the topic.
Members and guests, please welcome Daniel Klem, Jr.!
To learn more, go to:
To learn more about Dr Klem's work, go to:
https://www.pbs.org/video/engineering-bird-friendly-glass-gl4lku/
https://www.danielklemjr.org/
https://www.muhlenberg.edu/birds-and-windows/
To review Dr Klem's slides from this presentation, go to:
https://tinyurl.com/DanKlem-Rotary26
To learn more about the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley, go to:
http://rotary.cool
Our Three Podcast Series
Our main program speakers are available as podcasts in addition to YouTube videos! Each week, they are available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, as well as many other platforms.
Our weekly podcast is now called:
Inspiring People - Stories of Innovation and Service
Inspiring Solutions for a Better World
Our original podcast, featuring some of the best of our previous speakers, is still available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and many other platforms.
Inspiring Women: Celebrating Trailblazers
Our newest podcast celebrates trailblazing women. It is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and many other platforms.
UPCOMING PROGRAM RECORDING SCHEDULE
All of our guest speakers and programs are recorded live online over Zoom video conference. We welcome members and guests to join us in one of these upcoming recordings. Recordings are approximately 30 minutes long and are subject to change without notice.
Our online video conference room link for these recordings is always http://zoom.siliconvalleyrotary.com/. You are welcome to join us! Please note the timezone listed for all recordings is US Pacific Time (San Francisco, California, USA).
If you can’t join the live recording, please send your questions for an upcoming speaker to programs@siliconvalleyrotary.com.
THE ATTENDANCE SURVEY
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