On a wildlife ecology tour in South Africa, TXST students observe animals including painted dogs and leopards while learning new perspectives on conservation.
September 17, 2025
Matt Joyce
On a wildlife ecology tour in South Africa, TXST students observe animals including painted dogs and leopards while learning new perspectives on conservation.
For Emily Stelling, the highlight of her South African safari was seeing a saddle-billed stork—or it may have been the leopards. For her classmate Cerise Mensah, it was the sight of endangered African painted dogs—or possibly the sound the epauletted fruit bat.
Stelling and Mensah, graduate students studying wildlife ecology at Texas State University, say it’s tough to pick a favorite moment from this summer’s Ecology Conservation Abroad course in South Africa. For two weeks, Associate Professor Sarah Fritts and a group of 15 students spent their days tracking and observing wildlife at the Greater Kruger Balule Pridelands and the Karongwe Game Reserve, within one the of the globe’s most biodiverse regions.
TXST students visited two South African wildlife reserves.
"It’s hard to put in words,” Mensah says. “It was like an out-of-body experience when I saw the painted dogs. Watching Animal Planet on TV or going to the zoo, the animals are removed. But in the bush, the glass isn’t there, and you’re right next to the lions and the elephants. It’s just surreal.”
Hosted by an educational company called EcoTraining, the study abroad course introduces students to the training required for African safari guides. The students sleep at camps within the wildlife reserves with no fences to keep out the animals. They spend their days going on safari, either by foot or vehicle, and convening for educational discussions.
Brown-hooded kingfisher. Photo by Sarah Fritts.
The experience satisfies two courses at TXST with a focus on animal behavior, natural history, ecology, and identification of plants and animals. Along with learning about the mammals, birds, insects, and plants, students also learn about human history, from indigenous practices to the contemporary world of ecotourism, nature guiding, and conservation.
Photo by Sarah FrittsPhoto by Cerise Mensah
Stelling says she was impressed with the guides’ depth of knowledge. Rather than specializing in birds, mammals, or reptiles, they “knew everything.”
Photo by Cerise Mensah
“They were just so knowledgeable to a degree that was like, how do you retain all this information?” she says. “It’s not just the animals, it’s the cultural aspects, the relationship of native peoples to plants and animals, their beliefs. And that was so incredible.”
The students also experienced new foods, including pap (a cornmeal dish), African vegetable stew, and kudu steak. “The milk tart was so good,” Stelling says. “It’s a dessert with a cookie crust and some kind of pudding on top.”
Mensah says her South African experience exposed her to a new range of career pathways in wildlife ecology, from anti-poaching trackers to field guides. “Going to another side of the world and seeing them do such different things that I’d never seen really expanded my brain for all the possibilities,” she says.
Stelling says she was struck by the importance of ecotourism in South Africa and the role it can play in conservation. She thinks the United States could learn from that.
"I wish we had a U.S. safari where you could drive and see a black bear and learn about the native significance of the black bear, or mountain lions, coyotes, red wolves, and gray wolves,” she says. “If we figured out a way for people to really experience what wildlife is, they could also learn to respect it, and that’s very important.”
Wildlife Ecology graduate students Cerise Mensah and Emily Stelling take us along for a look at their South African wildlife safari summer study abroad experience.
Matt Joyce
Manager, Marketing & Communications
Matt Joyce is the editor of Hillviews and a writer and editor for TXST's Division of Marketing and Communications.
