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Abstract

Survey of stocks of the oyster Crassostrea sp. in natural banks on the Paraná coast. The economic importance of diverse species of native oysters, particularly Crassostrea sp., makes the exploitation of this
species attractive to the coastal communities. The exploitation of such  natural resources only on unsustainable extraction alone leads to a threat towards natural supplies by over fi shing. Based on this fact, an evaluation of the conditions of the natural supplies of this species becomes important for future projects of sustainable conservation and handling of resources. In this work, data was raised regarding the supplies of the oyster Crassostrea sp. of three distinct natural banks, one on Cotinga Island at the mouth of the Maciel River, and another
at the mouth of the Biguaçú River. In each bank, three random sam- plings were taken during the low tide using areas of 1ft.x1ft. It was also  observed in this work that, among the locations of natural supply of the native oyster Crassostrea sp. found in Paranaguá Bay, of Cotinga Island presented the most signifi cant values regarding size in com- parison with those of the Maciel River and Biguaçú River, and between the last two locations, the fi rst presented higher values. However, no signifi cant differences were found in the biometric values between
the banks sampled in the respective forests.