What happens when a wildlife biologist who has spent her career protecting wild places decides to become a hunter?

In this episode of the Ignite Podcast, Dana sits down with Christina Wilson, a wildlife biologist from the Florida Keys and a graduate of the Women Hunt Field to Fork program. Christina’s story is a powerful look at conservation, hunting, food, and the unexpected ways they can all connect.

For nearly 12 years, Christina has called the Florida Keys home. After spending five years as a field entomologist studying mosquitoes, she transitioned into wildlife biology with a passion for protecting the land and natural resources that make the Keys so unique. Today, she manages more than 6,000 acres stretching from the Everglades through the Lower Keys, often navigating the islands by boat, kayak, and on foot. Her work has given her a front-row seat to the challenges facing wild places—including development, habitat loss, and declining conservation funding.

Although hunting was part of her extended family history, Christina had never hunted herself. That changed when she applied for and was selected for Women Hunt Field to Fork. She entered the program wanting to better understand hunting, challenge some of the misconceptions surrounding it, and become a stronger advocate for the connection between hunters, wildlife, and conservation.

What happened in the field went far beyond learning how to shoot.

Christina shares the emotional experience of harvesting her first deer, processing the animal herself, and bringing the meat home to share with fellow wildlife biologists in the Florida Keys. She talks about how taking responsibility for her own food changed the way she viewed hunting, wildlife, land, and even the food on her own table.

She also opens up about arriving at the program only weeks after a nine-day hospitalization and feeling like she was the weakest shooter in the group. Yet surrounded by 11 other women, she found encouragement, resilience, and a genuine sisterhood. All 12 women successfully harvested an animal—a remarkable outcome that Christina says changed her perspective on what women are capable of.

From her first deer to hunting invasive iguanas in the Keys, Christina is continuing to explore the role of hunting in conservation. She shares her plans to pursue Osceola turkey, wild hog, and alligator, and explains why she believes women hunters have an important role to play in telling the story of conservation.

This is a conversation about courage, connection, conservation, and discovering that sometimes the best way to understand wild places is to experience them for yourself.
Follow her on YouTube and Instagram at @FloridaWildWoman and @ChristinaWildWilson, or visit FloridaWildwoman.com. 

Tags: Women Hunt, Conservation