Ken Johnson found himself in a situation that was impossible to, well, bear. <\/p>\n
A 550-pound male black bear wedged itself into the crawl space underneath Johnson\u2019s Altadena home just after Thanksgiving. Officials tried air horns, cherry and caramel flavored bait and even a trap that caught the wrong bear. <\/p>\n
By Christmas, the enormous mammal had done serious damage \u2014 turning on a gas line under the house \u2014that forced Johnson to live without hot water. <\/p>\n
But this week, the unwelcome house guest, dubbed Yellow 2120 by researchers<\/a>, finally got his formal eviction notice.<\/p>\n Volunteers with the BEAR League, a nonprofit based in Lake Tahoe, chased out the bear in roughly 20 minutes using paintball guns on Tuesday. <\/p>\n \u201cWe do a lot of evictions,\u201d said Ann Bryant, the executive director of BEAR League. \u201cWe\u2019re up to about 150 a year now \u2014 bears under houses, so we\u2019re well versed on how to do it.\u201d <\/p>\n It\u2019s not a job for the faint of heart. Generally, Bryant says, the volunteer will get into the crawl space with the bear, get behind the massive animal and scare him by yelling, clapping and sometimes firing a paintball gun. <\/p>\n \u201cThey know they shouldn\u2019t be there anyway, it\u2019s human habitat,\u201d Bryant said. \u201cThey get scared and run off.\u201d <\/p>\n Aside from being a general nuisance with their ferocious snores, pungent odors and growls, bears can do serious damage to a home. In their attempt to find a cozy place to rest, bears can destroy insulation, wiring, heating ducts and water and gas lines as they tear into crawl spaces. <\/p>\n While the ordeal was incredibly frustrating for Johnson, updates on his unusual guest have been an unexpected distraction and obsession for a community that has lost so much. <\/p>\n Johnson started a GoFundMe to raise money<\/a> to fix the damage inflicted by the bear, which he estimated is in the range of tens of thousands of dollars. More than 100 people had donated $4,200 as of Friday morning. <\/p>\n \u201cRight after surviving the Eaton fire, I lost my job, and shortly after that the bear began tearing into the structure of my home,\u201d Johnson wrote. \u201cProfessional traps, safety measures, and repairs are incredibly expensive, and I\u2019m being forced to pay for all of it myself while unemployed.\u201d<\/p>\n Bryant said her organization stepped in to help Johnson after hearing that he had to turn off utilities to his home.<\/p>\n \u201cWe felt sorry for him, and we didn\u2019t want him to have to go through that all the way until spring when the bear leaves,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n This wasn\u2019t the first time Yellow 2120 had been spotted in Altadena. The bear was caught in the area in the last year and was relocated about 10 miles away from Johnson\u2019s home, but apparently returned in the last five months, according to the Department of Fish and Wildlife. <\/p>\n California is home to an estimated 60,000 black bears, the highest population estimate in the contiguous United States. Bear sightings, particularly on trash day, aren\u2019t uncommon for communities like Altadena nestled at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. But some say last year\u2019s Eaton fire made the situation worse<\/a>, driving bears out of their habitat and increasing the number of home invasions. <\/p>\n Before the BEAR League stepped in, Johnson had exhausted all efforts trying to get the bear to leave his property. <\/p>\n He rigged a burglar alarm with foam so it made a loud clattering sound. He burned CDs with hours of dog barking audio and pointed speakers into the vents, all in the hopes of flushing Yellow 2120 out.<\/p>\n It didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n