A New Mexico national park published a cautionary tale online after a traveler left their Cheetos packet on a trail – claiming ‘world-changing’ chaos could’ve unfolded.
The Carlsbad Caverns National Park, situated in the Guadalupe Mountains of southeastern New Mexico, is considered a natural wonder. Featuring more than 119 caves and deep rocky canyons, the hiker’s paradise also plays home to desert wildlife, including cougars, bats, and cave swallows. It’s the single largest cave chamber by volume in North America, with the large limestone chamber measuring almost 4,000 ft long, 62 ft wide, and 255 ft high.
Last year, officials managing the park’s Facebook account issued a warning to tourists considering visiting the cave, reminding them to take their garbage home with them. If they didn’t, it could cause a serious negative impact on the animals that have called the place home for decades.
What happened at Carlsbad Caverns that involved Cheetos?
The Carlsbad Caverns National Park issued a dire warning to anyone thinking of disposing of their garbage in the ancient caves (Carlsbad Caverns National Park/Facebook)
On September 6, 2024, the Carlsbad Caverns National Park Facebook page posted a statement after a chip packet had been dropped by an explorer in the so-called ‘Big Room’.
In the post, the page explained how everyone and everything on Earth shares the same breathing space, and that even the most minuscule events can have a major ripple effect.
The caution began: “Here at Carlsbad Caverns, we love that we can host thousands of people in the cave each day. Incidental impacts can be difficult or impossible to prevent. Like the simple fact that every step a person takes into the cave leaves a fine trail of lint.
“Other impacts are completely avoidable. Like a full snack bag dropped off-trail in the Big Room. To the owner of the snack bag, the impact is likely incidental. But to the ecosystem of the cave it had a huge impact.”
Why are Cheetos so dangerous to the Carlsbad Caverns?
The chips apparently made the ‘perfect environment’ for fungi and microbial life to thrive (Carlsbad Caverns National Park/Facebook)
They explained how the processed corn, softened by the humidity of the Big Room, helped design the perfect environment for microbial life and fungi to thrive.
Insects such as cave crickets, mites, spiders, and flies reportedly began to organize into a temporary food web, dispersing the nutrients to the surrounding cave and formations.
“Molds spread higher up the nearby surfaces, fruit, die, and stink. And the cycle continues,” the post continued.
“At the scale of human perspective, a spilled snack bag may seem trivial, but to the life of the cave it can be world changing.
Don’t leave your chip packets here, got it? (Getty Stock)
“Great or small we all leave an impact wherever we go. Let us all leave the world a better place than we found it.”
While the perpetrator was never named and shamed, the national park did announce its rangers were able to remove the ‘foreign detritus’ from the cave surfaces, and, ultimately, protect the ecosystem.
Let this serve as a warning for the next time you plan to explore some caves; keep a tight hold of your snacks, or maybe back away from the chips until you’re finished exploring.
If you can abstain from them for that long, of course.
Featured Image Credit: Getty Images/Buddy Mays
