Catches Down 80%: Hartlepool Fishers Turn Detectives

In October 2021, thousands of crabs, starfish and lobsters washed up dead and dying on the beaches of Hartlepool. Catches have since fallen by 80%. Jeanie Finlay's new documentary, All Rivers Spill Their Stories to the Sea, tells the story of the fishing families left to work out what happened — and it's a maddening watch.

Who is the 'next Mr Bates'?

At the centre of the film is Stan Rennie, a Hartlepool fisherman of nearly 50 years who has been called the next Mr Bates — a reference to the campaigner behind the UK's Post Office scandal. Rennie has fished the same stretch of northeast coastline for half a century. Then came the die-off. "It was like something out of a horror film," one local says in the film.

The fishermen suspected industrial pollution. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) investigated and concluded the most likely cause was an "algal bloom" — a rapid growth of algae that can deplete oxygen in the water. For Rennie and the others, the official answer didn't add up. So they crowdfunded their own independent scientific study.

What does the mass die-off mean for the town?

The economics are brutal. The fishermen are close to bankruptcy, carrying mortgages and raising kids. The cost of diesel now runs higher than the price of a haul. Most have put their boats up for sale. When they protested through town, one placard read: "Any jobs in Lidl?"

Their own theory points to toxic sediment dredged from the River Tees and dumped at sea. Their crowdfunded investigation found evidence linking the die-off to pyridine — a chemical byproduct of steelmaking — in the dredged material.

Why this documentary matters

Finlay, whose previous film Your Fat Friend tracked fat-activist Aubrey Gordon, builds the documentary as a portrait of ordinary workers pushed into eco-activism. The mechanism is simple: when officials deny responsibility, the affected community has to fund its own science. That's the film's engine, and its sting.

The die-off dates to October 2021; the film arrives as the fishermen's campaign for accountability continues. Whether the pyridine evidence forces a rethink of Defra's algal-bloom conclusion will decide if Stan Rennie earns the Mr Bates comparison in full.