My choice was to relocate, or kill the animal, by relocating at my work, which is 250 acres - mostly woods and on a lake, I gave them the better chance to survive. Otherwise I would have had to drown them, then dispose of them.
I am not sure there is any good answer. I tried exterminators, and not only did they not figure out where the critters were getting inside my house, but I had to,pay them to do the same thing, trap and then relocate, or kill the animal. I did not ask how the exterminators handled the ones that were caught.
Prior to having squirrels in my ceiling, I had bats. I was fully aware that I could only remove the bats once their babies were able to be on their own. ( I think the squirrels chased the bats out) and was also unwilling to remove the squirrels if there was any chance they had a nest of babies in the ceiling. I did a lot of research as to how and when the best times to try to capture the animals would be.
Again, there is no good answer.
I will admit the dogs managed to kill about the same number of squirrels as I caught. Not sure what the most humane answer was. I did have a lot of people tell me to shoot them with pellet guns. Not sure that is any better choice.
