Guwahati: Nine rhinos have been killed in Kaziranga National Park in Assam this year, a new report has said.

The latest report highlights the danger faced by the animals owing to rising poaching incidents in the state.

Home to 2,300 one-horned rhinos, the Kaziranga National Park has been facing problems in containing the rhino poaching incidents.

Out of nine rhinos that have been killed, seven were killed in Kaziranga and two more were slaughtered in Oranag and Sonitpur districts of Assam.

Officials said poachers killed these adorable animals for mere Rs 10,000 per killing for their horn and leather. It is believed that horn and other extracts from the animals are being sold at more than Rs 1,00,000 in the international market.

Meanwhile, Union minister of environment, forest and climate change (MoEFCC) Prakash Javadekar has said that the Centre and the state government will work together to curb poaching.

Asking the officials to launch measures to check the illegal poaching, the minister also urged locals for active participation in checking the menace.

“Our battle against poaching is a continuous process. It is a fight between our efforts on one side and greed on the other. Both the Centre and the state government will put in effort to curb poaching. If there are loopholes, we will plug them,” said Javadekar.

According to a report, there were more than 500,000 rhinos in the world at the start of 20th century, but their populations declined drastically due to excessive poaching over the years.

As per the survey conducted by IUCN, there were 70,000 rhinos in 1970 and the number further plunged to 29,000 in 2015 due to spurt in poaching.

Also, only five rhinos species have been left at present as per the IUCN Redlist of threatened species, while three of them are classified as critically endangered.