Then you shouldn't live in the country. Animals have a right to their own
living space, too. If you don't feel that you can live in harmony with
these surroundings you should move into the city.

Actually, animals have no 'rights', but that is another discussion.

Even in the city, where I live, you still get various creatures disrupting your
carefully laid plans - herons in the fish pond, racoons in just about
everything.

You can trap coons, but you'd have to release them a LONG way away to be sure
they wouldn't return, and in any case, there is probably a small army of his
mates waiting to take his place.

I knew one guy that trapped them and then drowned them. He seemed to have a
never ending supply of them lined up to traipse through his yard. I suspect
that the only way to keep a coon proof yard would be good fencing topped with
wire (electric or otherwise), and if you live in the country, that isn't an
option. Better learn to live with it, or you'll get ulcers.

The only guy around here that managed to rid himself, at least temporarily of
coons was someone that was trapping them and somehow one of them managed to get
trapped in a supposedly humane trap in such a way as to cause it pain. The
caterwauling was heard for blocks and all of the other coons left for places
unknown by the time he released the poor beast. I wonder if recordings of
simulated racoon torture would have the same effect?

As for squirrels, while I agree they are pretty much just fuzzy tailed rats,
you will never get rid of them.

One guy I know was ****ed off that they always ate his birdseed from his
feeders, and he invested in a rather diabolical feeder device that sensed the
weight of anything heavier than a squirrel, and then released a spring drive
that spun the whole feeder, launching the squirrel into low orbit. It didn't
seem to faze the squirrels, and was actually pretty enteratining to watch,
sitting on the porch, making bets about direction and distance for the next
'flying' squirrel.