EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (CBS4) – It’s a bizarre and sad story in El Paso County — investigators want to know who shot three animals, including a lion.

The lion, named Zazu, lives at the Serenity Springs Wildlife Center. Investigators said the lion was shot in the shoulder. The other two animals, both horses, died.

“To pick on a defenseless animal that’s sitting in a cage, that’s not a hunter. That (person) shouldn’t even have a gun,” Wildlife Center Executive Director Nick Sculac said.

Around the same time and less than a half a mile away someone shot Dixie the horse. The owner was out of town last week when it happened.

“Of all the things to shoot, a horse? A horse doesn’t do anything,” Dixie’s owner Matt Hall said.

Now police are looking to see who shot the animals. They say another horse was shot and killed two weeks earlier in Calhan. The sheriff’s office said in all three cases each animal was shot just once.

“It’s never the same, (Dixie was) a good horse, one of those once-in-a-lifetime horses,” Hall said.

Hall is offering $2,000 to find the person responsible for killing his horse.