A California homeowner was shocked to find an enormous ‘contortionist’ bear had been living underneath his home.
Kenneth Johnson, 63, had grown suspicious in April after finding torn out bricks and the broken wooden frame covering his home’s crawl space.
He installed a camera in June after noticing more damage, but it wasn’t until last week that Johnson made the terrifying discovery of the huge brown bear that had claimed the space under his house.
‘I don’t know how it got under there. It must be a contortionist,’ Johnson told the Los Angeles Times, noting the small size of the crawl space compared to the giant size of the bear.
‘This thing is so big its stomach touches the ground.’
Footage of the bear emerging from the space in the side of his home showed the beast, with a yellow tag in its left ear, struggling to pull itself out onto the ground.
Johnson had been replacing the batteries on the camera down the side of his home when the beast growled at him from inside the crawl space on Friday.
‘I was shaking like a leaf for half an hour,’ he told the outlet. He promptly called the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, who directed him to the California Department of Fish & Wildlife.
Kenneth Johnson, 63, had grown suspicious after finding broken and torn pieces of his home around the crawl space in April before discovering the bear last week
Footage of the bear emerging from the space in the side of his home showed the beast, with a yellow tag in its left ear, struggling to pull itself out onto the ground
While Johnson doesn’t believe the bear poses him any harm, he said he’s staying well away from the side of his house
But he was told he needed to wait until Monday for a response due to the holiday weekend, CBS News reported.
‘It’s uncomfortable walking into the kitchen thinking there’s a bear over there,’ Johnson told the Times.
While Johnson doesn’t believe the bear poses him any harm, he said he’s keeping a clear distance. Even his cat Boo is terrified of the animal housed below his home.
The bear hasn’t shown any signs of aggression, and neighbors have even sighted the animal roaming around the area, Johnson told the outlet.
It often crawls out during the day, believed to be searching for food, and then returns at night, camera footage obtained by the outlet revealed.
Johnson said he was no stranger to wildlife around his home, and recalled his father discovering an eight-foot boa constrictor in a refrigerator in their garage.
‘We’re used to seeing wildlife in Altadena, but it’s changed because of drought and fire,’ he added.
After the Eaton fire in January, residents discovered a 500-pound bear nicknamed Yogi living underneath their home in Pasadena after it was forced from its habitat by the fire.
While Johnson doesn’t believe the bear poses him any harm, he said he’s keeping a clear distance. Johnson has the names Ursa and Barry in mind, depending on the sex of the animal
The bear often crawls out during the day, believed to be searching for food, and then returns at night
Johnson, awaiting the sex of the bear, said he has two potential names; Ursa or Barry.
The homeowner’s last sighting of the beat was at around 6am on Saturday but it ‘hasn’t left since.’
‘I feel okay with it,’ he said. ‘But I want him to get out.’
