Video of our river showing the same stretch 2015 – 2024Guest Blog, Mark Barrow, Beneath British Waters

GUEST BLOG: Mark Barrow, Beneath British Waters

The Decline of the River Wharfe

I have been filming in rivers across the United Kingdom, including the River Wharfe, for 35 years. In fact, the Wharfe was the very first river I dived in and filmed when I began in 1989. At that time, the river was full of life, with vast shoals of roach, including specimens of 1.5 lb and occasionally larger, which now appear to have long disappeared. Speak to any angler from that era, and they will confirm the same. In the late 1980s and 1990s, particularly around the end of May during spawning season, it was not uncommon to see the river so densely packed with fish that it appeared black, giving the impression one could almost walk across them. Sadly, this is a sight that has now vanished. When filming underwater during that period, it was common to be surrounded by shoals of 300–400 grayling. By contrast, from 2020 onwards, up to the present day in 2025, I now film grayling at the same sites only in pockets of 30–40. Grayling, as we know, are highly susceptible to pollution. If I were to film a section of the river approximately 200 metres in length back then, I could cover the entire stretch and encounter many different species of fish, not just minnows. Since 2020, however, these fish now appear only in isolated groups. They are found mainly over the remaining patches of clean gravel. Moving downstream, the riverbed becomes almost lifeless, coated in a thick carpet of algae with strands of filamentous algae in places. Over the years, I have witnessed the steady decline of the Wharfe. Ruffe, once a common and productive species, now seem to be nearly absent. One particularly troubling change is the disappearance of freshwater mussels. I used to see hundreds of them, but I cannot recall the last time I filmed a single one—they appear to have all but vanished from the areas I monitor. Dace, too, have declined significantly. While salmon still breed in the river, and I have filmed the parr over the cleaner gravel sections, their numbers are not high.

When I first began filming, it was rare to encounter pollution. Occasionally it appeared, but it was unusual. Today, however, documenting pollution in the Wharfe has become a major part of my work. Simply walking along the banks in winter reveals sewage debris tangled in trees and undergrowth, only hidden in summer by seasonal vegetation. Wipes, condoms, sanitary towels in fact everything that makes its way into a sewer I have probably filmed. In my view, the River Wharfe is now a shadow of its former self—a river that has lost so much but still holds the potential for recovery. The notion that the Wharfe is “ecologically too good to be true” is simply false. The degraded state of the river today should not be accepted or redefined as the new natural.