Wow - it surprises me after that story that you live right in town! Must be a small town? Good luck with them as I know they can really cause some damage.
Actually, it’s a rather large town with population of about 150, 000. And, we live right in the middle of town on a bluff above an extrememly busy highway. We have a herd of deer that cross the yard every morning. If I stood outside the house on the northwest corner with a 2X4 and started swinging at 5:00 a.m., I am almost guaranteed to get one. We had a nice 4 point buck get his foot caught in our fence and broke his hip one year, and he went right into the freezer.
I call the highway below our house “Vulture Alley” because there are dozens of vultures that cruise it waiting for all the roadkill. They cleaned up the yard after the deer gutting in a matter of hours.
We have all manner of critters around here. I even saw a mink not far from here when I was walking along a creek. It’s usually not that big of a problem if you have a tall fence, but these blasted ground hogs are so persistent.