Aerial Antelope

Jesse Owens of the animal world is the cheetah, a species of Asiatic wildcat which can run 70 m.p.h. for distances up to 100 yards. For longer stretches the world's speed champion is the U. S. pronghorn antelope, which can maintain 60 m.p.h. for several miles, 35 m.p.h. almost indefinitely. Rancher Charles J. Belden of Pitchfork, Wyo. once chased a herd of antelope 27 miles in 45 minutes in his automobile. Nearly an eighth of the 40,000 pronghorn antelopes in the U. S. roam over Rancher Belden's 200.000 acres in the Meeteetsee Valley. Few years ago they were so near extinction that hunting them was _ forbidden. As a result they have multiplied immensely, eaten more than their share of Rancher Belden's grass. Lately he got permission to sell a few. Last week Rancher Belden's unique sales methods made headlines in two continents.

Full-grown pronghorn antelopes are so claustrophobic that they die within 48 hours after capture. Newly-born fawns, however, are easily domesticated. Rancher Belden, who is proud of never having killed an antelope, catches the fawns with over-sized butterfly nets or with fox terriers, feeds them cow's milk through a nipple. As soon as the young pronghorns are around two months old and weigh about 25 Ib., Rancher Belden sets about delivering them to zoos, which are always eager for them. Since most means of transport are too arduous for the delicate fawns, he uses the Ryan monoplane of his friend Bill Monday, onetime cowpuncher.

Last week, with 83 little pronghorns carefully wrapped in burlap bags and resting in two rows in the plane, Rancher Belden and Pilot Monday took off from Pitchfork, began dropping antelope all across the nation. The Chicago and Philadelphia Zoos each got a pair and three were delivered at the National Zoo in Washington. Then the plane buzzed on to New York, where eight went to an animal dealer to be sold as pets, six went to the New York Zoological Park, two were consigned to Germany as cargo on the Hindenburg. For each of the tawny, wide-eyed, prick-eared creatures with 'little bumps where the horns are beginning to bud, Rancher Belden collected $100. Clumping about Manhattan in his cowboy boots, ten-gallon hat, the short, jovial "Antelope King" remarked: "None of the fawns was airsick. Whenever they seemed to mind the heat, we just flew a thousand feet higher. The trip was a cinch."

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