I met David Mattson in 2015 on a trail where we were both walking our dogs. We weren’t far from where he and his wife, Louisa Willcox, live in southwest Montana, about an hour north of Yellowstone National Park. He and I didn’t speak the first time we crossed paths, but the next time, our dogs recognized one another and stopped to say hello. Mattson and I let down our Montana reticence and chatted. He doesn’t like to talk about himself, so it wasn’t until later, when a friend told me in reverent tones about Willcox’s advocacy for grizzly bears, that I learned what an important role the couple have played in protecting bears in and around Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks.