Dropped Cheetos bag in national park unleashes an army of cave critters
A careless visitor to Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico dropped a bag of Cheetos inside one of the caves, unleashing an army of critters and causing 'world changing' consequences for life inside the cave.
Park officials revealed the huge impact of this seemingly innocent snack mishap in a social media post last week.
In a Facebook post, park officials explained that the humid cave environment turned the processed corn snack into a feast for microorganisms, creating 'the perfect environment to host microbial life and fungi.'
'Cave crickets, mites, spiders and flies soon organize into a temporary food web, dispersing the nutrients to the surrounding cave and formations,' the post continued.
'Molds spread higher up the nearby surfaces, fruit, die and stink. And the cycle continues.'
A careless visitor to Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico dropped a bag of Cheetos inside one of the caves, unleashing an army of critters and causing 'world changing' consequences on life inside the cave
In a Facebook post, park officials explained that he humid cave environment turned the processed corn snack into a feast for microorganisms, creating 'the perfect environment to host microbial life and fungi'
While some of these uninvited guests were cave dwellers, many were not - throwing the cave's delicate ecosystem into disarray.
Park rangers spent 20 grueling minutes meticulously removing the foreign detritus and molds from the cave surfaces.
'At the scale of human perspective, a spilled snack bag may seem trivial,' the park officials warned. 'But to the life of the cave it can be world changing.'
Officials stressed that this chaos was 'completely avoidable.'
With nearly 400,000 visitors a year, the Carlsbad Caverns National Park emphasized the importance of 'leave no trace.'
'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 some of these uninvited guests were cave dwellers, many were not - throwing the cave's delicate ecosystem into disarray
'To the owner of the snack bag, the impact is likely incidental. But to the ecosystem of the cave it had a huge impact. '
This wasn't the first time visitors caused major damage inside the caves.
In early August, cave officials announced that at least 60,000 cave formations have been broken off, many probably by tourists to take home as illegal souvenirs.
'Over 60,000!! That's how many cave formations have been broken in Carlsbad Cavern, and those are only the ones we know about!' they announced in a Facebook post.
'Most of those broken formations are probably from human interactions and taking formations home as illegal souvenirs,' they wrote. 'This park strives to protect the cave and every formation in it, you can help us by not touching or removing any parts of it. This helps preserve the cave and protect it for the next generation of visitors.'
