The first big migration night comes when the ground thaws, the snow melts and a warm rain falls after dark. In southwestern New Hampshire, that is the signal for spotted salamanders, wood frogs and spring peepers to leave the forest and head for the vernal pools where they breed. Many of them have to cross a road to get there.
Since 2007, volunteers organized by the Harris Center for Conservation Education have been standing in those roads with flashlights, picking the animals up and carrying them across. The center calls them Salamander Crossing Brigades. As of the 2026 season, they have moved 107,391 amphibians out of harm’s way.
Big Nights
The 2026 season involved more than 400 volunteers who put in about 1,300 hours at 41 sites in 18 towns. They counted 10,024 amphibians, including 5,765 spring peepers, 2,258 wood frogs, 891 spotted salamanders, 209 American toads and a handful of rarer species. A single site, North Lincoln Street in Keene, accounted for 3,410 of them.
That street is now closed to cars on migration nights. After years of conversation with the Harris Center, the city of Keene began shutting North Lincoln Street for what the volunteers call Big Nights. In 2026 it closed the street for five nights, along with nearby Jordan Road. Volunteers also document the animals that do not make it, which is the reason the whole effort exists. “It doesn’t take many cars to cause a lot of damage,” said Brett Amy Thelen, the center’s science director, who has spent about two decades on Big Nights.
A ray of sunshine in the rain
“For the first ten years of the project, on a night like this, I would hate to go home,” Thelen told New Hampshire Public Radio in 2025. The volunteers seem to feel the same way. “It makes me happy,” said Katy Luscombe. “Rainy days are hard, and helping to cross the amphibians is like a little ray of sunshine.”
The data the brigades collect is now feeding something permanent. A federal grant is funding the planning of wildlife underpasses, including one at Jordan Road in Keene. In Monkton, Vermont, tunnels built in 2015 cut amphibian road deaths by about 80 percent. “This is the first time our community science data is being used to inform a project like this,” Thelen said.
Until the tunnels are built, the brigades will keep doing it the slow way, one salamander at a time.
Sources
- Harris Center for Conservation Education, Salamander Crossing Brigades
- Harris Center, 2026 field reports
- Harris Center, 2025 field reports
- New Hampshire Public Radio, Amphibian migration and the volunteer brigades (April 2025)
- New Hampshire Union Leader, Wildlife volunteers help amphibians (March 2026)
