Ricky and Ricki: British actor lends star power to plight of penned bear

British actor and comedian Ricky Gervais has joined the effort to free Little Ricki, a bear that's spent the last 18 years in a small pen outside a York County ice cream shop.

Lancaster residents Amanda Welling and Kelly Bennett joined with a Red Lion couple and the Animal Legal Defense Fund in a lawsuit asking that James H. McDaniel Jr. of Hellam Township, owner of Jim Mack's Ice Cream on Lincoln Highway, be required to release the 19-year-old black bear to the care of an animal sanctuary.

LNP wrote about the bear's plight on Dec. 31. On Monday, Gervais asked fans on his Facebook page to sign a petition on the bear's behalf.

"This is heartbreaking," Gervais wrote above the link.

By late afternoon Tuesday, his comment had more than 13,000 likes, more than 8,000 shares and a few thousand comments, most in support of freeing the bear from its cage.

The petition had nearly 74,000 signatures as of 5 p.m. Tuesday. A separate ALDF petition urging people to boycott Jim Mack's until the bear is freed had more than 11,000 signatures.

Veterinarians said the bear is "suffering immensely," according to the civil complaint. The ALDF says Ricki suffers from stress, and is given an inadequate diet and inadequate housing.

A sanctuary has been found that is willing to take Ricki, Welling said in December. There, she said, the bear would have more than 200 times the space it has now.