Starsky the cat, seen here with owner Kerry Kennedy in 1979, lost a leg to a gin trap, shown in the foreground. For decades New Zealand SPCAs campaigned against the traps, routinely used to catch possums, ferrets, stoats and feral cats. The reality of the suffering that the metal-jawed leghold traps caused was brought home to the public when occasionally a loved pet accidentally encountered one. Some of these animals did not survive the injury, and those that did almost always had to have the limb amputated. Gradually it became more widely accepted that the traps were inhumane, regardless of the type of animal caught. In 2007 an order restricted the use of leghold traps in New Zealand, and by 2011 only padded traps could be used.