By Alex Kirby BBC News Online environment correspondent

We have helped stop the tradition of dancing bears in Greece and Turkey and hope we will also see this cruelty abandoned in India. Victor Watkins, Libearty

The sanctuary has been paid for by the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), working with an Indian group, Wildlife SOS.

The sanctuary, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, will hold between 40 and 50 bears when it is full.

WSPA estimates that about 1,000 animals are used as dancing bears across India.

It says the practice, which is banned, is accelerating the decline of the sloth bears used for dancing, with more than 100 cubs taken illegally from the wild each year.

Long-term problems

Less than a year old, a cub may have a rope or chain forced through its nose and most of its teeth removed, without anaesthetic.

WSPA says the bears are trained to dance "through a regime of pain and starvation", with few surviving to much more than eight years. In the wild they can live up to three times as long.

Refuge in the Agra sanctuary

All the bears in the Agra sanctuary were brought in voluntarily by their former owners, members of the Kalandar tribe who traditionally use dancing bears to raise money on the streets.

Several animals had maggot-infested wounds when they arrived at the sanctuary, and one had had an eye gouged out. Many are still traumatised.

The bears range in age from three to fifteen years, and all come from the Agra area.

Aiming at abolition

The sanctuary, now managed by Wildlife SOS and the Indian authorities, is about 17 acres (7 ha) in size. It has electric fencing and a walled perimeter.

As well as artificial dens and two large pools, it contains two quarantine pens, a laboratory, and a veterinary clinic.

Victor Watkins of Libearty, WSPA's global campaign for bears, said the opening of the Agra sanctuary was a milestone in the group's efforts to consign dancing bears to history.

The bears have short lives

He said: "For the first time, the authorities have a purpose-built place where confiscated bears can live out the rest of their lives.

"We have helped stop the tradition of dancing bears in Greece and Turkey and hope that, in time, we will also see this cruelty abandoned in India."

Mistaken identity

Sloth bears are found not only in India but in Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh as well.

Their main diet is ants and termites - they can be heard from some miles away sucking up termites.

The bears, which are classified by the World Conservation Union as vulnerable, are hunted by farmers to prevent crop damage and also for their gall bladders, which are used in Asian medicines.

Scientists originally thought the animals were in fact sloths, and they were called bear sloths until closer examination led to their name reversal.

Images courtesy of WSPA