The Subtle Sounds of Summer
After springtime’s racket, the warmer months come with a quieter soundtrack.
Author Archives: Sonya Bennett-Brandt
Sonya Bennett-Brandt is an award-winning freelance environmental journalist and editor, currently based in Austria after many beautiful years in Berkeley. Her work on conservation, climate adaptation, and the (human and nonhuman) animal world has appeared in Wired magazine, The Guardian, KneeDeep Times, AFAR magazine, and Summit Journal, among others. She has never seen a mountain lion, but a mountain lion has probably seen her.
Split Verdict Over State of the Estuary
This piece was originally published in KneeDeep Times, a digital magazine featuring stories from the frontlines of climate resilience in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. The 2025 State of Our Estuary...
What to Do When Your Highway Is Slipping Into the Sea
Picture a giant Rubik’s cube that costs $6–11 billion to solve. That’s State Route 37.
A Living Shoreline, Built One Oyster at a Time
Olympia oysters, whose native range runs from Baja California to southern Alaska, are being enlisted as ecological engineers in nearly 40 “living shoreline” projects in the US alone.
Behold the Flamboyant Mating Rituals of Grebes
Western and Clark’s grebes strike rakish figures on Bay Area waters. But for all the attention they command, the secrets of their lives are well-guarded.
What Lies Beneath
Can we keep Lake Tahoe's aquatic invaders at bay?
Like Top Gun, But With Falcons, and On Alcatraz
Our first sign of falcon presence is a lone pigeon feather that floats down like a sinister snowflake from the top of the Alcatraz lighthouse, the highest point on the...
Mud-Starved Wetlands Get a Meal, At Last
With Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding, the Bay’s wetlands are finally getting some precious muck. Why have we been dumping it offshore?
