The first thing is to determine if relocation of wildlife is even legal in your area. Many states forbid relocation of wildlife without a permit. However, there are many reasons to think twice about relocation. Despite popular perception, relocation cannot be thought of as the most humane alternative in many cases:
1. Relocated animals must find new food sources in an unfamiliar environment.
2. Relocated animals must find new shelter in an unfamiliar environment. In the wintertime, relocated wildlife have precious little time to find shelter.
3. Relocated animals must do numbers 1 and 2 above while avoiding predators. It must also do those tasks before weather, food, and water conditions take their toll.
4. Your relocation may result in the deaths of young, who may starve because you have relocated their mother away from her young.
5. Relocating animals raises the risk of relocating a disease like rabies to new and uninfected locales, as happened with the Mid-Atlantic rabies outbreak.
6. Suitable habitat is rarely species poor, so moving new animals into a location actually increases competition, resulting in fighting and greater degradation of the environment.
7. Highly mobile species often move very far from the area they were moved to. One study found that raccoons could move over 20 miles from the drop-off point in a short period of time.
The alternatives to relocation include:
A. Excluding the animal from the structure (making sure there are no young inside). Oftentimes animals already have an alternative site or den that they've prepared. Let them get there. One-way doors are sometimes helpful here.
B. Contacting a professional to give you options.
C. Using traps and euthanasia. As mentioned above, some states forbid relocation of wildlife without a permit. The same is often true with trapping and euthanasia.
Resources: (online)
Relocation
