The 550-pound bear living under a man\u2019s Los Angeles home for 37 days has finally left the building \u2014 after being shot at with paintballs.<\/p>\n
Altadena homeowner Ken Johnson has been living with the massive black bear under his home since Nov. 30 when it began squatting in his crawl space. The \u201cunbearable\u201d roommate ruined Christmas for Johnson and had him on edge for weeks.<\/p>\n
Giant Bear peeks out from the home he has claimed in Altadena since late November. Ken J. Johnson<\/p>\n
Homeowner Ken Johnson first became suspicious after noticing items around his Altadena property knocked over or damaged. Ken J. Johnson<\/p>\n
The bear eviction finally happened Tuesday after Johnson contacted \u201cThe Bear League\u201d \u2014 a group from Lake Tahoe that specializes in bear removal emergencies.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe heard about Ken, we felt bad for him and flew down and got the bear out,\u201d said Ann Bryant, the founder and executive director.<\/p>\n
The crew jumped into action, firing paintballs into the crawl space until the bruin had enough \u2014 retreating from its den.<\/p>\n
The bear eviction happened Tuesday after Johnson contacted \u201cThe Bear League.\u201d Ken J. Johnson<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bear was gone in 20 minutes,\u201d Bryant said.<\/p>\n
The paintballs are filled with vegetable oil and sometimes \u201cthey hit the bear in the rump,\u201d added Bryant \u2014 who said her organization does between six and eight bear extractions a day.<\/p>\n
Johnson told The Post he quickly covered the crawl space with two layers of plywood and sandbags to prevent the bear from ever coming back. The Bear League also placed an \u201celectric mat\u201d in front of the crawlspace designed to give a small shock if stepped on.<\/p>\n
The shock mat proved to be handy when the bear returned Wednesday but got zapped.<\/p>\n
Paintballs are filled with vegetable oil and sometimes \u201cthey hit the bear in the rump,\u201d said Bryant \u00a0\u2014 adding her organization does six to eight bear evictions per day. Ken J. Johnson<\/p>\n
California Department of Fish and Wildlife had been trying to extract the bear for over a month. Ken J. Johnson<\/p>\n
\u201cHe came back, and I was like, \u2018oh my gosh.\u2019 He hit the mat and scurried away into darkness,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n
The Bear League website says the group offers around-the-clock support, noting its goal is to \u201ceducate people about the true nature of these animals.\u201d The league has 2,500 members and 220 volunteers, Bryant said.<\/p>\n
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife had been trying to extract the bear for over a month first with scent spray \u2014 then with a bear trap filled with sardines, fried chicken, shrimp, peanut butter and apples.<\/p>\n
The trap eventually caught the wrong bear, a beast that had been walking around the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
Johnson eventually threatened to sue the CDFW after he claimed the agency abandoned efforts to get rid of the animal.<\/p>\n
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The CDFW told a beary different story.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite very limited staff, CDFW biologists have been in constant communication with this homeowner since this bear was reported entering his unsecured crawlspace in November,\u201d a CDFW spokesperson told The Post. \u201cWe remain committed to helping this homeowner and have never indicated otherwise.\u201d <\/p>\n
The agency had no immediate comment in relation to the bear\u2019s departure but did confirm it had left.<\/p>\n
Johnson\u2019s life had been turned upside down since Nov. 30.<\/p>\n
He said he dealt with sleep deprivation from nighttime noises from the beast, as well as strange smells and severe damage under his home.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a lot more stressful than I thought,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n
But now that the bear is gone, the homeowner said he loves the animal \u2014 as long as it stays away.<\/p>\n
\u201cA bear is not a good roommate,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re meant to co-exist, not co-habitat.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 550-pound bear living under a man\u2019s Los Angeles home for 37 days has finally left the building…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1457,2136,4752,44312,9,11,10,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-94695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-california-wildfires","11":"tag-la-fires-2025","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-news","15":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}