New Hampshire

Two of the most dangerous animals in the world can be found in New Hampshire

Published

6 months ago

May 21, 2025

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Two of the most dangerous animals in the world can be found in New Hampshire.

New Hampshire might not seem like the locale for dangerous animals. After all, its mountainous terrain and cold winters prevent animals like crocodiles and scorpions from making a home in the state.

It’s true that very few people are killed by animals in New Hampshire, and most are not dangerous unless provoked. But according to BBC’s Science Focus Magazine, mosquitos and snakes are two of the most dangerous animals in the world – and both can be found in New Hampshire.

Mosquitos

Mosquitos are the deadliest animals in the world, killing over 725,000 people a year through diseases like West Nile Virus (WNV) and Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE).

There are more than 40 species of mosquitos in New Hampshire, according to the NH Department of Health and Human Services, and only a small number of these carry and spread EEE and WNV. Still, DHHS recommends using effective mosquito repellants when mosquitos are biting and contact your health care providers if you develop symptoms of these diseases, like headache, neck stiffness, fever or paralysis.

Timber rattlesnake

New Hampshire has one venomous snake: the timber rattlesnake. In New Hampshire, it looks like a large, thick black snake with brown cross-bands and a triangular head.

Most timber rattlesnake bites are not deadly, but you should seek immediate medical attention if you get bit.

But luckily, it’s rare to run into one in New Hampshire: while historically this snake ranged from the Massachusetts border up to the White Mountains, the species is now endangered with just one known population in the state.

Black bears

Black bears are generally shy and like to avoid humans, but they are still dangerous. If you encounter a bear, New Hampshire Fish and Game Department says to keep your distance and make loud noises. If a black bear attacks you, you should fight back rather than play dead.

Black bears are capable of killing people, but don’t fear – it’s extremely rare. According to NH Fish and Game, the last time a person was killed by a black bear in New Hampshire was 1784.

Moose

At 1,000 pounds and six feet tall, a moose can pose a significant threat if it becomes aggressive.

Warning signs that a moose is anxious or agitated, according to the Appalachian Mountain Club, include laid back ears, hair standing up on the back of their neck, smacking their lips, or tossing their head upwards. If a moose charges, you should run and continue to try to escape even if it makes contact. To avoid conflicts, it’s best to stay a safe distance away.

According to the AMC, there has never been a human fatality from a moose attack in the Northeast. Moose pose a greater danger to people in cars: several people die every year in moose-vehicle car collisions in the Northeast.

Moose occur throughout New Hampshire, but are most numerous north of the White Mountains, according to NH Fish and Game.

Black Widow spider

Black widows have a venomous bite 15 times more potent than a rattlesnake. According to the Connecticut Poison Control Center, black widow bites can cause redness and pain, but generally no serious symptoms.

And like the rattlesnake, the spiders aren’t hostile unless threatened and they’re rare to cross paths with: they are only found in the southern parts of New Hampshire.

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New Hampshire

Canterbury NH library saves big with insulation upgrade – Concord Monitor

Published

4 hours ago

November 23, 2025

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Canterbury NH library saves big with insulation upgrade – Concord Monitor

Rachel Baker is going to have to think of a new present for library staffers this holiday season.

“For Christmas I would always buy them sweaters… just to keep them warm,” said Baker, who has worked at Canterbury’s town library for 20 years, the last five as its director.

Holiday sweaters, ugly or otherwise, won’t be needed this year because the building, a converted cinderblock fire station, now has something that most buildings take for granted: insulation.

“When I say it had zero insulation, I mean zero. I have pictures!” said Baker. “You could see Mt. Kearsarge through my roof… There was no caulking around my windows, none.”

Library Director Rachel Baker discusses the formerly-leaky windows at Elkins Public Library in Canterbury, NH. Credit: UNITIL / Courtesy

That problem was solved during a five-day session in April, when crews from Northeast Air Sealing of Concord crawled through the roof and otherwise gained access to fill leaky air spaces and, in industry parlance, tighten the building envelope.

“They did the ceiling, all the walls, around the windows. They did it without us having to move the books out — they were brilliant,” Baker said.

Elkins Public Library at 9 Center Road moved into the former fire station in 2004 as part of a town-wide municipal building project, but initial plans for radiant heating were dropped, leaving just a propane furnace. Patrons and staffers have shivered through winters ever since.

The roughly $20,000 cost of the improvements was mostly covered by NH Saves, a program funded by New Hampshire utilities using ratepayer money that supports a variety of energy efficiency work, with the help of a $7,210 energy efficiency incentive from Unitil. Baker said town resident Tom Flaco did the heavy lifting on getting the assistance.

The improvements are expected to lower the library’s annual energy usage by approximately 1,515 gallons of propane, saving around $4,500 a year.

The arrival of cold weather means people will be able enjoy the library without having to put on fingerless gloves and break out the space heaters, but even during the heat of summer, Baker noticed an unexpected improvement.

“Acoustics was the biggest difference,” she said. The uninsulated cinderblock building had allowed outdoor noise to intrude even as it reflected indoor noise. “We didn’t notice that until it was gone — it was so much quieter.”

The director has an extra reason to enjoy the upgrade because she grew up in Canterbury where her father, Dale Caswell, was fire chief.

“I knew this building intimately. I spent my childhood in this firehouse,” she said. Seeing it take on a new life has been a treat: “It’s a gorgeous space. We have so much room here.”

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New Hampshire

Lawsuit challenges New Hampshire’s voter ID requirements – Valley News

Published

22 hours ago

November 22, 2025

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Lawsuit challenges New Hampshire’s voter ID requirements – Valley News

Soon after Joshua Bogden attempted to register to vote on the day of Portsmouth’s municipal elections Nov. 11, he faced a tough decision.

Bogden had not brought along a passport or birth certificate to prove his citizenship. And though he had previously been registered and voted in Wilton, poll workers told Bogden he needed to leave and return with one of those physical documents.

Bogden could either drive to city hall and request a same-day copy of his birth certificate, or rush home and find his own copy. But he had only hours until the polls closed, and only minutes before Portsmouth stopped its birth certificate service at 4:30.

In the end, Bogden decided to drive home and chance that he could find the certificate, he said during a press conference Thursday. He did find it and was able to vote. But the hassle he faced is at the center of arguments by some that recent changes to New Hampshire’s voter registration laws are too strict and will result in frustrated voters choosing not to vote.

“Luckily, I lived nearby,” he said. “But if there had been any more sort of traffic or anything in my personal life — going home to pick up the kids, trying to do this after work — there’s no way I would have been able to come back and vote successfully.”

Since a new law took effect November 2024, New Hampshire voters are required to produce hard copies of citizenship documents the first time they register to vote in the state. The law eliminated the previous option for voters registering on Election Day to sign a “qualified voter affidavit” that allowed them to vote without proving citizenship by testifying on penalty of perjury that they were a U.S. citizen.

Republican supporters of the law, House Bill 1569, say the new requirements are reasonable and necessary to close loopholes that could allow non-citizens to vote, and that voters should prepare by obtaining their citizenship documents in advance

Lawmakers also passed a follow-up law in 2025, House Bill 464, that allows local election officials to access the Statewide Voter Registration System, New Hampshire Vital Records, and Division of Motor Vehicle databases in order to attempt to corroborate a resident’s citizenship.

But a number of voting rights groups are suing in federal court to block the law, arguing it creates an unconstitutional burden and that it will disenfranchise eligible voters, especially those for whom obtaining a passport or birth certificate could be difficult.

In the meantime, the October and November municipal elections have offered a fresh look into how the new law might affect voting in practice.

According to a tally by the New Hampshire Campaign for Voting Rights, 123 voters were turned away from the polls due to a lack of documents. Combined with the 121 residents the group reported were turned away for the same reason during town meetings in spring, at least 244 people were turned away in 2025, the group says.

Voting rights advocates and Democrats argue those tallies are a cautionary tale for the state ahead of the September 2026 state primaries and the November 2026 midterm federal election. Many more people are likely to vote in those elections, and many more who don’t bring along their citizenship documentation could be turned away, advocates warn.

They hope U.S. District Court Judge Samantha Elliott, who is presiding over the lawsuit, will issue an injunction ahead of the midterms. A full evidentiary trial in that case is expected in February.

At Thursday’s press conference, advocates attempted to show the difficulty posed by the new documentary requirements, which election law experts have called the strictest in the country.

In addition to Bogden, Brayden Rumsey, a Dover voter, said he had to drive home to retrieve his passport in order to vote Nov. 11. Rumsey was not aware of the new citizenship documentation requirements; he had assumed that showing a REAL ID driver’s license would suffice, since to obtain it he had been required to show his passport.

“I have my own car. I have my own way of getting there. I don’t have any kids to take care of. I have access to a passport and access to my birth certificate that I could easily get,” he said. “I know a lot of people don’t have that privilege like I do.”

And Michael Blanchette, who recently moved from Concord to Manchester, said he had called the city ahead of the Nov. 11 election to get confirmation of his citizenship using his previous registration and presence on the voter database. But despite that confirmation, Blanchette said he was still asked for citizenship documentation at the Manchester Ward 7 polls, and had to wait an hour for multiple election workers and city officials to clear him to vote.

“(I knew) if I went back home and took my pain meds, I was not coming back out,” he said. “And it was now or never. So I stuck through it. I didn’t realize it would just drag on.”

Linnea Hartsuyker, a supervisor of the checklist in Dover’s Ward 5, said she had seen at least one prospective voter leave and not return once learning of the requirements.

Hartsuyker said the 2025 law providing election workers access to the state voter file proved helpful, allowing her to verify at least those voters who had already registered. That remedy would not have worked for new voters who moved from out of state, she said.

“Last year at the general (election) I and my team registered 50 people per hour for 12 hours,” she said. “That’s almost one person per minute with the old system, and I am quite worried about being able to do that in the coming election, at the midterms.”

Access to those state databases might vary from polling place to polling place depending on internet availability and the amount of time and manpower available during a rush of voters, critics say. Rumsey and Blanchette said workers at their polling places did not appear to have direct access to those databases, necessitating calls to city hall officials.

It is not clear how the apparent tallies of voters turned away from voting might affect the trial in next year’s lawsuit.

In a July 29 ruling, Elliott ruled that some of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, filed in 2024, lacked standing because their experiences did not directly demonstrate a potential unconstitutional barrier to voting. But she granted standing to other plaintiffs, such as the Coalition for Open Democracy, the League of Women Voters of New Hampshire, the Forward Foundation, and three plaintiffs who were minors but planned to register to vote when they turned 18 and said the need to procure documentation was a burden.

The Attorney General’s Office has defended the law and said the constitutional challenges are not substantiated. In a Nov. 7 memorandum asking Elliott to dismiss the case, Assistant Attorney General Michael DeGrandis argued that the law struck a balance between allowing every eligible person to vote and safeguarding the process from fraud.

“New Hampshire pairs that open access with commonsense eligibility checks so only the votes of eligible voters are counted,” DeGrandis wrote. “Striking this balance is essential to guarantee an election system that is both welcoming and vigilant in protecting the integrity of the ballot.”

And he wrote that the law does not impede the organizations suing, and that the individual plaintiffs “have not offered competent evidence of cognizable injuries.”

“It is Plaintiffs’ burden to come forward with definite, competent evidence of injury, causation, and redressability, but they have not,” DeGrandis wrote.

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