For Century High student, summer vacation was a study in hyenas, and volunteer service

Dakota Smith, 16, admits that when he decided he wanted to travel to South Africa, he didn't know it was a country.

But the Century High School junior ended up knowing more about the country than he imagined after spending two weeks in August studying the brown hyena.

Dakota, of Eldersburg, participated in a teen expedition with the non-profit Earthwatch Institute to study the brown hyena population as a means of helping protect the species from predators.

"I just wanted to experience something different," Dakota said.

Dakota's mother, Valerie Mares, searched for camps or some way for her son to volunteer during the summer when she spotted a story on Earthwatch in National Geographic.

Earthwatch focuses on scientific research on climate, animals and more. Scientists submit research proposals to the institute for approval. The institute offers programs around the world where both teens and adults can participate. For students, they either win scholarships, gain an internship or pay about $3,000 (not including airfare) to help with research.

Mares decided to surprise her son with a Sweet 16 birthday present he will never forget.

"I feel like kids his age really don't have a rite of passage, and don't always have opportunities to have a life-changing experience," she said. "I think traveling is such a great and valuable experience. You can't get that in a classroom."

Dakota had to chip in his share to help defray the cost. "I had to pay for my plane ticket, so I had to work all summer at a dog kennel in Woodbine," he said.

Though Dakota's trip to South Africa would be his first out of the country, Mares said she was comfortable with it.

"When I was his age, I went to Africa, too," she said. "I went with a group. We were studying in Europe, took a side trip to Africa -- to Morocco and to Tangiers."

But Dakota's trip went to the wilderness with a mission to estimate the brown hyena population on the Mankwe (pronounced Man-kway) Wildlife Reserve, about two hours north of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Farmers believe brown hyenas kill their livestock, Dakota said, but it's actually the spotted hyena that's a threat.

"The brown hyenas are so bad at hunting, they're pathetic," he said. "They can kill, but they found out they're not a huge threat to livestock."

The work was not glamorous, he said, yet is necessary.

"A lot of the times, we did latrine surveys, and that's when you go out and look at all the hyena poop," he said.

But at night, Dakota and the other teens would do pig and rabbit calls to attract hyenas and scan with a spotlight. That provided a close encounter, all right ... but not with a hyena.

"There was a rhino with his cub and we came along and stopped to observe it. This girl made this call, put her mouth against her hand and made a squeaking noise," he said. "The rhino turned around and viciously started to charge. It was probably as close as 50 or 75 feet."

Other tasks included confiscating poachers' traps and helping smother fires on the reserve as the team helped burn about 1,000 acres to help new grass grow, he said.

Dakota felt the pressure to get everything right.

"It was definitely nerve racking because this is actually going to something important," he said. "If it's not right, it's just the opposite of what you want to do. You definitely had to be on your game, mentally, the whole time."

One of Dakota's more enjoyable parts of the trip was feeding a wildebeest leg to an African wild dog, also known as the painted dog.

"It was really special because only the people who work with the dogs are allowed to do that," he said.

Dakota was told by the workers that only a couple people in the world from the public, including Celine Dion, have fed the dogs at the reserve.

Dakota aspires to be a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologist, and wants to work with animals and the environment even more after working in South Africa. He said he is inspired by the work of the team.

"It makes me want to go everywhere now because it's like, why haven't I been here?" he said. "I know I'm going to go back there some day just because what we were doing was just so incredible."

His mom said Dakota appears to be more mature since the trip, and she hopes the experience exposed him to more career choices.

Before the moment when Dakota decides what he wants to do, he is setting his sights on a trip with Earthwatch to Brazil to research sea otters and bats.

"I think I'm going to have to pay the whole thing,' he quipped, "so I gotta get working."

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