Virginia has been a problem. The Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC) has taken some positive measures recently, such as restricting hand harvest and dredging in state waters during spawning season. But the cap they set in March 1999 codified the loophole that allowed horseshoe crabs caught in federal waters off of New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland to be landed in Virginia instead. Virginia is currently the focus of Audubon's state efforts.

The state of fisheries management in Virginia today: At the March 1999 meeting of the VMRC, Dr. H. Grant Goodell, one of the commissioners, asked about setting a horseshoe crab landings cap, "Why can't we do a quota based on demand instead of supply?". William Pruitt, the Chairman of the VMRC, responded that he had often wondered the same thing. This was shortly before the VMRC decided to set the cap at 710,000 crabs based solely on the bait needs of the commercial fishing industry. Think about it.