Greetings, Lookout friends. It is Monday, Nov. 3, and Santa Cruz County is looking at another day of sunshine (once the fog burns off) and temperatures in the 60s and 70s before another rainmaking system starts to filter in late Tuesday.
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After recent news of another surfboard-stealing sea otter at Santa Cruz’s Steamer Lane, Alonso Daboub spoke to researchers about how proximity to humans is reshaping the animals’ behavior. Repeated, close human contact – encouraged by tourism and recreation in places like Elkhorn Slough – is teaching sea otters to shed their healthy wariness of people, experts warn.
A plan to create a temporary biking and walking path on the railroad bridge over the Santa Cruz Harbor as a way to help businesses affected by ongoing work on the parallel Murray Street Bridge leads off Max Chun’s weekly Carmageddon column. The Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission will discuss the proposal at its meeting Thursday.
Jana Marcus returns with her latest local theater review, marveling at the Cabrillo College Theatre Arts Department’s ongoing production of “Metamorphoses” — “a visual masterpiece,” she writes, that turns the Black Box Theater into “a dreamscape — shimmering, fluid and alive.”
We’re also unveiling the winners and runners-up on the 2025 Lookout List, starting with Activities and Outdoors – check that out among all the Monday headlines below.
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Too cute for comfort? Santa Cruz’s sea otters might have a publicity problem
As surfer-otter run-ins continue, researchers say people, not otters, are responsible. Human development has left Santa Cruz’s sea otters with nowhere to go, forcing them to get comfortable with people. Here’s more from Alonso Daboub.
Carmageddon: To ease Murray Street Bridge closure, RTC pushes ahead with biking, walking path over harbor
Transit officials are proposing an 8-foot trail over the Santa Cruz Harbor rail bridge between Seabright Avenue and 7th Avenue that could be used by as many as 450 cyclists and pedestrians daily. Max Chun has the update, plus more in local traffic and transit.
DAILY DIGEST
A busy start to this first Monday of November, and we’re not slowing down here at Lookout – among what’s still coming today is In the Public Interest, a weekly look inside Santa Cruz County politics & policy, just one of the many free newsletters and breaking news alerts you can sign up for here. Take our award-winning local coverage along with you all week long by downloading the Lookout Santa Cruz app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, and if you’re on social media, stay current on it all by following Lookout on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Bluesky.
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Thanks for reading – may your Monday be a smooth one.
Will McCahill