SHELLFISH FARMERS like Ramiro Cordero, who works for Taylor Shellfish Farms in Bay Center, Washington, are used to being in uncomfortable positions and places. Farmers stand in the sand, elbow-deep in muck, to pluck oysters from the water. They hack away at mudflats to extract clams. They blow high-pressure water hoses into the ground to uproot geoducks that can be as long as their arms, sometimes their torsos.
The job would be difficult anywhere, but it’s particularly taxing in Washington. Here, wintertime low tides — shoreline shellfish are harvested when water levels are low — occur at night. Sometimes farmers like Cordero are out at midnight, in the freezing cold, in January.
Like many of
