I used to do a lot of trapping, and sampled more than a few of the critters I caught.
Beaver and muskrat aren't bad at all. Honestly, you can cook it like beef and especially if you shred it and mix it with some barbeque sauce you wouldn't hardly notice the difference. As mentioned, the tail is a different consistency entirely, but is also quite good. We just took the tail and laid it in the coals of a fire to cook it, and then peeled the skin off. The skin from the tail makes some pretty cool knife sheaths, otherwise.
Raccoon is kind of like greasy pork too. Not too terrible; definitely edible.
Actually, if you've eaten vanilla-flavored foods like ice cream you've probably sampled the castor sac secretions of beaver, which are marketed as "natural flavorings". Although mainly used for vanilla flavoring, they have a few other uses too. And the sacs are used in other industries than food too. They're used in some perfumes and some scent-sprays; they used to be used for medicine (but I don't think so anymore?); and I think they even use it to flavor cigarettes?
The scent beaver put off is quite noticeable, but also pretty pleasant.
When I trapped beaver, I normally kept (and then sold) the pelt, but also I harvested the castor sacs and anal glands (all four glands are in close proximity to each other). I could either hang the glands and sacs to dry, and then sell them to the fur buyer or else I could grind them and make a liquid-putty bait that obviously worked well for attracting beaver, but also worked well for fox and coyote.
A fair share of the carcasses that I didn't want I donated to a local zoo, which was eager to take them for their carnivores (lots of big cats, wolves, bears). They also love it if you donate fresh road-killed deer, for that matter.
Beaver were always one of my favorite animals to catch. Not all that difficult to catch, but big (up to around 70#), neat animals. They're also generally pretty plentiful, and a thorn in the side of many property owners. I had many places where helping remove some beaver opened the door for me to trap other critters like coyotes, foxes, 'coons, 'rats, and otter. They're also not terrible in value (either sold as dried pelts to the buyer, or as tanned hides to folks who want to use them for man-cave display). I often paid a small fee to have them tanned, so I could sell them for a higher value as tanned hides. I still have several around the house.
