Yellow 2120 Is Back: Altadena's Crawlspace Bear Returns
A 550-pound male black bear tagged "Yellow 2120" was spotted in the crawlspace of a home on Minoru Drive in Altadena on Monday.
The sighting was reported on Sept. 29, 2026. Steve Clark said his in-laws live in the home. The occupants watched the bear on security cameras and tried to drive it out with loud music and a leaf blower. The bear left the crawlspace on its own. The homeowners then sealed the opening. The Guardian
This was not the animal's first extended stay under an Altadena house. "Yellow 2120" lived for two months starting in November 2025 under another Altadena home. That home belongs to Ken Johnson, who contacted the California Department of Fish and Wildlife for help removing the bear that month.
Johnson had seen damage earlier. In April, he found bricks around the crawlspace torn out and the wooden frame covering it broken. A crawlspace is the shallow space under a house used for pipes and access. The bear wedged itself in just after Thanksgiving and settled in a space under the kitchen. Los Angeles Times
That stay drew wide attention. At one point a different bear poked its head into the crawlspace and was scared off by "Yellow 2120." Members of the Bear League, a volunteer organization, forced "Yellow 2120" out in January with paintball guns. After that eviction, the bear moved to two more nearby homes. ABC7
Altadena sits at the edge of the Angeles National Forest. The Eaton wildfire tore through the forest and scorched parts of Altadena in January 2025. Bear activity in the urban interface, the zone where neighborhoods meet wild land, around Los Angeles has risen fast in recent years. California recorded 28 bear sightings in Los Angeles County in 2017 and 455 in 2023.
Alex Heeran is a research scientist at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife who studies how people and wildlife interact. He said human-bear encounters usually peak in late summer and early fall, when black bears finish pre-hibernation feeding, or heavy eating before winter rest. He said 2026 is on track to be record-setting for reported bear encounters in California. Black bears are the only bear species living in California. The state population is estimated at 49,000 to 71,000. Black bears have killed one person in recorded history in California.
The broader context here is habituation and shared habitat rather than one animal's behavior. Habituation means a wild animal has learned to feel safe using human structures for shelter. Once a bear learns to use crawlspaces, it can repeat the pattern across a neighborhood. Sealing entry points after departure can matter as much as the removal itself. The open question for wildlife managers is whether repeated, non-lethal evictions keep animals moving without food conditioning, or learning to seek human food, and whether residents in fire-affected foothill communities can close off structures and remove attractants fast enough to slow further late-season encounters.
