Seven adult peahens and one young peacock have been relocated to the Altina Wildlife Park, but a resident says the trapping is cruel and poorly timed, when male peacocks are in full plumage.

ACT Parks and Conservation Service wants to remove 25 peafowls after complaints from the Uniting Care Retirement Village.

A Uniting Care spokesman said from the point of view of St Aidan's Court, the peacocks were keeping some residents awake for long periods, they were creating a significant mess with droppings on footpaths, clothes lines and cars, and they had become a safety hazard, with the potential for residents to slip on droppings.

Narrabundah resident Roy Chamberlain wrote to Territory and Municipal Services Minister Shane Rattenbury asking for a more thoughtful and collaborative approach to removing the peacocks.

"They don't know how many there are to start with, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence, but the numbers vary widely and they say they are going to remove about 25. My concern is that will be almost all the colony. So there is inconsistency in what they are saying, they are not doing the legwork in the beginning to work out what the true numbers are.

"They say they will be contacting us and doing consultation after they have removed a certain number of peacocks, so it's a little cart-before-the-horse if you ask me. They should work out what the numbers are first and then have a conversation based on what the community consensus might be."

Mr Chamberlain's partner Fiona Cameron says she is distressed that following a week of trapping she didn't see "a single girl" or hear a single honk in the morning before she left for work.

"Apparently Territory and Municipal Services will consider consultation after they have completed their trapping. That is zero consultation prior to an irreversible action," Dr Cameron said.

Another resident, who did not want to be named, said the removal was undemocratic. " If the ACT [government] vet and the RSPCA are overseeing this exercise it would have been useful for them to at least talk to the vast number of peacock supporters and also to take into account that this time of year, when a male is in full plumage, is not the time to so cruelly catch them – in their own safe haven and wonderful environment on Brockman and Wylie streets.

"Don't these so-called experts know that the full train of the male will fall out in February? This amazing lack of insight shows the calibre of project management and lack of insight which has accompanied this rash decision."

TAMS response was "the current trapping program is not targeting adult males. It is only trapping females and juvenile males."