Dave Smith is a naturalist who has lived in grizzly country since 1972. He has worked in Yellowstone, Glacier, Glacier Bay and Denali National Parks, and worked as a fire lookout in northwest Montana for three summers. Dave's outdoor adventures have included a solo canoe trip from Yellowstone National Park to the Missouri River in North Dakota and a forty-day stay in the remote, rarely visited desert canyons in central Arizona.

Dave lectures widely on bears and has appeared with Jack Hanna in a documentary on Glacier Bay National Park aired by PBS and The Nature Channel. He is the author of Alaska's Mammals, and resides in Anchorage, Alaska.