‘We sometimes milked 3,000 snails a day!’: the dying art of milking molluscs

Mauro ‘Habacuc’ Avendaño, 81, milks a rare purpura snail for dye. In his lifetime, he has gone from finding up to 3,000 snails a day to about 100. Photograph: Mauricio Palos

The site for the camp is well chosen. Mangrove trees provide shade from the sun; from their hammocks, the two men can look out over the yellow sand of Chachacual Bay. Rocks rise at both ends of the beach, breakers crashing against them. Next to the camp, turtles have left their tracks in the sand. “They often come at night and keep us company,” says Mauro Habacuc Avendaño Luis, 81, known to everyone as Habacuc.

While Habacuc lights a campfire to make coffee, his son Rafael, 42, sets up a small tent for the night. Rain is forecast. “We’ve been camping in the same spot for many years,” says Habacuc. “From here, we roam the coast in search of the purpura snail.”