PARIS — One or more poachers shot and killed a 4-year-old white rhinoceros in a wildlife park near Paris, sawed off one of its horns and then escaped, officials at the park said on Tuesday.

Thierry Duguet, the head of the Parc Zoologique de Thoiry, told a local radio station that he and his staff were “extremely shocked.”

“There has never been a case like this in a zoo in Europe, an assault of such violence, evidently for this stupid trafficking of rhinoceros horns,” Mr. Duguet said.

The wildlife park, which is about 30 miles west of Paris, said in a statement on Facebook that the rhinoceros, a male named Vince, was found dead by one of his caretakers Tuesday morning with gunshot wounds to the head.