About the Author
Found Nov 2020 Sunny Isles Beach.
Florida Wildlife was contacted.
Photo by Mystica Green
Mystica Green has a lifelong passion for conservation and draws from her real-life experiences. A back injury left her living on the floor for several months unable to work as a nurse or volunteer. She decided to turn to writing and made her mission of helping sea turtles into a book.
​
While her first encounter with sea turtles was in Hawaii over 25 years ago where she learned how sacred and endangered these creatures are, her passion ignited after finding a baby sea turtle washed ashore dead on a south Florida beach in 2020. As this poor tiny turtle had no visible injuries, she could only assume it had perished from eating plastic. Being a new south Florida resident, she started researching everything she could on how to help this endangered species. She walked the beach every day and picked up trash. She then started to see news articles about sea turtles getting trapped in man-made holes so she started filling in holes while picking up trash. After learning about how sea turtles have very poor vision on land and can easily get confused, she added flattening sand castles to her list of duties. This led to her first published article on Ollie Connects titled "A Beautiful Sunrise or a Threat Lurking?" that received wonderful comments. You can find this article on the Turtle Talk page.
She ended up moving close to a nature center/sea turtle hospital and had the opportunity to volunteer at the fish tanks. She absolutely loved the peacefulness here and all the marinelife. She then applied and was interviewed to become a Sea Turtle Husbandry volunteer. During this special opportunity, she helped feed the sea turtles, cleaned their tanks and even assisted in holding these precious creatures during simple procedures (thank you nursing background). One of the most heartfelt moments was watching one of these injured sea turtles get released back into the wild after healing.
She was also volunteering for a local non profit doing water quality testing and beach cleanups. After researching and finding out there were no groups that went around filling in holes, flattening sand castles and picking up belongings, she pitched the idea to the nonprofit who told her “run with it!” And so that she did. All of this ended very abruptly due to the back injury and surgery.
​Unable to do a physical nursing job or volunteer work that required physical labor, she directed her time into writing. After much research, she formed her own business and independently published "Hope’s Beach Rescue: A Tale of Saving Sea Turtles" in January 2024. She has recently sold her book at the Ft Lauderdale International Book Fair and TurtleFest at LoggerHead Marinelife Center where she also educated hundreds of children and adults alike.