After the devastating Eaton fire in California earlier this month, a family came back to their house to find a 525 pound black bear curled up in their crawl space. 

People in the community had seen the bear in the neighborhood before. Some neighbors were scared that a bear was walking around the neighborhood, and others embraced it and gave the bear a name. Residents suspected he lived in Eaton Canyon, which is just around the corner from the neighborhood. The Eaton fire had started on January 7th, 2025 in Eaton Canyon. Locals assumed the bear was seeking refuge as the flames grew, and settled for the crawl space of an evacuated house. 

After residents had returned back to their homes, the bear was discovered by a utility company trying to restore power to a home. They told the home owners that they were unable to restore power because a large bear was blocking the space they needed to access. 

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife was called to have the bear removed from the crawl space. Due to the bear’s massive size, they decided that they would be unable to tranquilize the bear. After some thinking, they set a trap filled with apples, peanut butter and even a rotisserie chicken. It did not take long for the bear to be intrigued by the snacks, walk into the trap, and trigger the trap door to fall shut. 

After trapping the bear, CDFW environmental scientists made sure the bear was healthy, weighed him, and placed a tracking collar on him. The bear was then released to the Angeles National Forest, safe and sound.