Jorhat, Nov. 15: Two poachers were killed in an encounter with forest guards at Kaziranga National Park early this morning, barely an hour before an elephant safari.

The two poachers are yet to be identified. A .303 rifle, ammunition, a handmade silencer, an axe and a bag were recovered from the encounter site near the Dhuba anti-poaching camp at the Agaratoli range of the national park. Poachers use axes to gouge out rhino horns.

The park was opened to tourists on November 1 and is teeming with visitors at present.

A pelican colony at the Agaratoli range attracts many ornithologists to Kaziranga. Every year, hundreds of pelicans flock to the Sohola beel in the Agaratoli range with the onset of winter.

An official at Kaziranga said there was information that a group of poachers had been entering the park since the last couple of days and the rangers were on alert.

“Late last night our rangers spotted a few poachers at the Agaratoli range but they managed to escape under cover of heavy fog,” the official said. This morning around 5, forest guards accosted the four-member group of poachers near the Dhuba camp. “One poacher fired the group of forest guards and in the retaliatory fire, two of them were killed while the other two managed to escape,” the official said.

Armed forest guards, mounted atop elephants, have been scanning the national park since morning to locate the two poachers who managed to flee as forest guards continued foot patrols.

The incident did not affect tourist flow into the park as the encounter took place deep inside the national park, the official said.

The encounter deaths took the number of poachers killed in Kaziranga this year to seven. The Kaziranga official said poaching could increase in Kaziranga and other rhino habitats in Assam with the onset of winter as poachers take advantage of the thick fog.

“It is very difficult to locate them inside the forest under the thick cover of fog and the poachers take advantage of this situation,” the official said. In winter, the rangers had to depend entirely on intelligence inputs on the activities of poachers, he added.

The national park, a World Heritage Site, has witnessed a series of gun battles between poachers and rangers in recent times.

Poachers killed a rhino at the Agaratoli range on October 27.