Jorhat, March 23: One of the cameras installed to keep track of the four-legged species in Kaziranga National Park has thrown up images of the elusive two-legged variety — poachers — twice in two days.

Two poachers were “camera trapped” on Wednesday near the Balidubi camp under Agartoli range of the national park, a fact that came to light today after the cameras were checked for images.

A Kaziranga official said, “We have identified the two poachers and operations are on to apprehend the duo. These photographs have come as a big help in our anti-poaching drive.”

The official said poachers would now think twice before entering the park for fear of getting photographed.

This is the second such incident in the past few days.

A few days back, photos of two other poachers were captured at the Burapahar range of the national park and Kaziranga authorities had identified one of the poachers to be from Nagaland. The duo were carrying .303 rifles. Though poachers had taken away one of the cameras installed at the location, they failed to locate another camera.

These photos of poachers are of immeasurable help to the forest department in identifying the animal killers.

The cameras were installed in the national park last month to carry out a Royal Bengal tiger census.

It was in Orang National Park that cameras first snapped photos of poachers in January 2011. The forest department later managed to arrest both the camera-trapped poachers and recovered two .303 rifles from their possession.

An Orang official said poaching attempts at the national park had also come down slightly after the news of poachers’ photos getting captured in cameras appeared in newspapers and TV channels. While only one case of rhino poaching took place in the park in 2011, two were killed the previous year.

According to figures available, poachers killed 49 rhinos in Orang between 1995 and 1999.

Another Kaziranga official said with poachers finding it tougher to enter national parks because the fear of getting trapped in cameras, they could now target rhinos that strayed out of the park. “More attempts would be made to target rhinos which stray outside the park,” he said.

Only yesterday, forest department officials had chopped off the horn of a rhino that had strayed out of Kaziranga, to protect it from poachers.