Ricki, the black bear rescued from a roadside cage on Lincoln Highway, thrives in Colorado sanctuary

Little Ricki, the bear rescued last year from a small cage along Lincoln Highway, York County, is fat and happy in her new Colorado home.

"She's doing great. That's the short answer," Kent Drotar, outreach director for the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Keenesburg, said Sunday.

"Obviously, she came from a difficult situation, and she's dealing with the effects of that."

Ricki -- they dropped the "Little" once she arrived in Colorado -- shows signs of arthritis and other skeletal issues, Drotar said, but that's to be expected at her age.

"Also remember, she spent about 16 years on concrete," he said. "It's affected her walk -- we call it the ‘concrete shuffle' -- and it will probably never go away. But she's doing better. She's adapting really well."

Little Ricki, estimated to be around 19 years old, was rescued in February 2015 after living for 16 years in a cramped habitat outside Jim Mack's ice cream parlor in Hellam Township.

She was taken to the Colorado sanctuary after a lawsuit -- spearheaded by Lancaster residents Amanda Welling and Kelly Bennett and the Animal Legal Defense Fund, among others -- made the case that Ricki was kept in cruel, unhealthy conditions, living alone in a 250-square-foot cage.

Now, she shares a sprawling 10-acre habitat with five other black bears.

She's made "pretty good friends" with two bears, Ella and Josie, Drotar said.

"She's not quite as social as a lot of bears who have been here a while," he said.

Ricki will adapt in time, Drotar said.

Instead of living on a concrete pad, Ricki has grassy fields with trees and ponds. Drotar said her daily routine includes an afternoon bath.

"Bears in captivity can live 30 to 40 years," he said. "She has a lot of years ahead of her."

'Feels like home'

Ricki lives on the western end of her habitat, where the enclosure where she spent her first few months in Colorado remains.

The gate is left open so she can come and go as she pleases.

The enclosure, Drotar explained, helped Ricki adapt to her larger environment.

"If we would just drop her into 10 acres after all that time alone, she would have been overwhelmed," he said. "She'd probably feel frightened with all that space."

The enclosure and attached den "feels like home to her," he added. "It's her base, but as she gets more comfortable she's been feeling more at liberty to explore the habitat at large."

Drotar said he's happy to see Ricki interacting with other bears.

"They'll share the water tank, or a water hole. They'll come by her den and visit," he said. "She has a sense of companionship."

But, unlike some bears, Ricki isn't very playful, he said.

"In her life before, she probably never felt like she could play. The environment wasn't right, and she felt stressed," Drotar said. "It's pretty common with animals we get here -- they either never learned to play or they've forgotten how to play."

That, too, is something she still might learn, he said.

Petitions for freedom

Ricki's plight drew national attention in January 2015, garnering tens of thousands of signatures on at least two online petitions and gaining support from comedian Ricky Gervais.

The bear's owner, James McDaniel Jr., agreed to surrender Ricki to end a lawsuit seeking Ricki's freedom. McDaniel is now prohibited from keeping wild or exotic animals in cages at the site.

The sanctuary keeps more than 150 black, brown and grizzly bears, plus hundreds of lions, tigers, wolves and other large carnivores, on 720 acres. All of the animals, according to the sanctuary website, were rescued from similar confinement.

Although captivity in a small, roadside cage wasn't good for Ricki's well-being, Drotar said she obviously touched the lives of a lot of people who saw her there.

"We keep getting requests ... from people who want pictures of Ricki," he said. "She is probably our most-requested animal."

Last spring, he said, people were demanding photos before Ricki came out of hibernation, and he told them to be patient.

"She's not living on demand any more. She gets to live her life as she wants," he said. "We had to wait until she woke up out of hibernation. We didn't want to wake her."