I was taking a minute to stop. Just me, the ocean, and some seagulls.

I was ignoring the fact that there was an entire city behind me. As long as I looked seaward, it was just me and the ocean, and still those same seagulls.

I sat still and wondered how long it would take for one to come bravely over. These were not the dive bombing steal your chip kind. These were the gentle, I’ll ignore you if you ignore me kind.

Except I couldn’t ignore this seagull.

This one that came closest to me to dabble in the water. This one that I thought at first was playing a game of ‘lift my leg up,’ but he wasn’t.

I noticed something hanging from his leg. A ruler length of what looked like fishing line caught up in its leg. The line had wrapped round and round the seagulls leg, growing into his skin, and finally amputating that little leg off. Left with a stump, and a continual possibility of being caught on something else as the fishing line hung down from its body.

I didn’t get the chance to think about doing anything to help it, as two pigeons came and scared the seagull off. Two lowly pigeons, that knew there was a pecking order and this amputee seagull with the man mad appendage was at the very bottom.

This was a tiny example of the state of our ocean ways and yet I felt completely disheartened as a witness to it. After sitting slumped and wallowing in a good dose of eco-anxiety, I decided to snap out of it. Wallowing will only take you so far and after that I vowed to go back to the battle lines and do something about it.

Take 3 is pretty damn simple way to do something about our precious oceans and sea life. In their own words…

“take 3 pieces of rubbish with you when you leave the beach, waterway or… anywhere and you have made a difference.” –Take 3

So often I don’t feel like it’s simply enough. But if I do this. Pass the story of the seagull on and I educate my kids to do this, they tell their friends to do this and so on. Maybe, just maybe we can make a difference and no more amputee seagulls (or other water based animals with far more gruesome tales.)

See here for more words on plastic and why we should be taking action from Tim Silverwood (Co-founder of Take-3)