Killer shrimp 'did not blind cat'

Fears a killer shrimp sweeping Britain had reached Telford were allayed this afternoon by Government experts.

Betty Evans feared her pet cat had been blinded after drinking from a pool infested with the shrimp.

But the Environment Agency this afternoon revealed the bug in Mrs Evan's garden was a hoglouse rather than the invasive eastern European shrimp Betty first feared.

Betty took her nine-year-old cat Blossom to the vets when she noticed its eyes had gone bloodshot after it drank from the pool.

Despite a vet operating on the cat, Blossom is now completely blind.

Miss Evans thought the bug in the pool might have been the so-called killer shrimp which is native to Eastern Europe but has now made its way into the UK.

But Serena Balsdon, spokeswoman for the Environment Agency, said an examination

of the bug revealed it was in fact a Hoglouse, essentially an aquatic woodlouse which was

put in her garden pool in Wildwood, Woodside, by some young children who collected

them on a fishing trip to a nearby stream.

The 58-year-old said when her other cat started having problems with its eyesight,

she thought it could have been down to the rare shrimp species.