New Hampshire’s 118 mink records all come from iNaturalist, with the most recent sighting from June 2026.
Salt marsh to lake shore, always near water
A mink almost never strays far from the water’s edge, denning in muskrat burrows, root tangles, and hollow logs anywhere from a riverbank to a stretch of coastal tide pools. New Hampshire’s short Seacoast and the tidal marshes around Great Bay match that description closely, and the state’s Lakes Region adds hundreds of miles of pond and lake shoreline that offer the same kind of denning cover. The White Mountains contribute the mountain streams a mink patrols on its way between larger bodies of water.
Two peaks a year, not one
Records rise sharply in March and again in July, roughly the frontier between the mating season in late winter and the point in summer when young mink start ranging on their own along the shoreline. Outside those windows sightings drop off, though a mink hunting fish, crayfish, and frogs at the water’s edge stays active through every season.
Status in New Hampshire
The mink is native to New Hampshire, and NatureServe ranks it S5, secure. Its need for continuous, undeveloped shoreline ties it closely to the state’s rivers, lakes, and the tidal marshes of the Seacoast.
Full species profile
