Cheetos aren’t the world’s healthiest snack food but they do terrible things to the ecology of a living cave. The precious few we have remaining are threatened by things most people don’t think twice about. Smuggling in the illicit bag of corn puffs might not have been much of a big deal to the one who did it but thoughtlessly discarding the bag was much worse than mere littering. Cave cleanup crews were not amused.
Cheetos toxic to the ecosystem
Just one bag of Cheetos, rangers at Carlsbad Caverns National Park scold, can be “world changing.” At least to the world living underground in New Mexico.
That one small snack size bag made a “huge impact” on the cave’s ecosystem, they relate. The visitor who dropped it has no idea how much damage they did.
“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.”
while staff charged with protecting the cave’s fragile ecosystem fully understands that “some incidental impacts can be difficult or impossible to prevent,” they have strict rules against consuming Cheetos along the trail. There are rules against touching the walls and other structures because of what skin oils do to the environment.
They take a considerable amount of precautions to prevent the contamination they can, including misting down the tourists to minimize the trail of clothing lint they leave behind.
“People walk among the caves on a regular basis, leaving a fine trail of lint,” rangers point out. Dropping a bag of Cheetos is “completely avoidable.”
A huge impact
Rangers at the Carlsbad Caverns National Park have a message for the careless tourist. “To the owner of the snack bag, the impact is likely incidental. But to the ecosystem of the cave it had a huge impact.” Cheetos aren’t as biodegradable as you would imagine.
“The processed corn, softened by the humidity of the cave, formed the perfect environment to host microbial life and fungi.” Every critter in the cave came running.
“Cave crickets, mites, spiders and flies soon organize into a temporary food web, dispersing the nutrients to the surrounding cave and formations.” Cheetos may not have much nutrition for humans but mold spores are in love with Chester Cheetah.
“Molds spread higher up the nearby surfaces, fruit, die and stink. And the cycle continues.” There are signs all over the place in case you didn’t see the notice posted on their website. “Food and drinks are prohibited in the cavern except for plain water.”
The cave cleanup was a lot more extensive than simply picking up the discarded bag and sweeping up the crumbs. Rangers reportedly “spent 20 minutes removing the foreign debris and molds from the surfaces of the cave.”
Sure, the experts admit, “some members of the ecosystem that came from the Cheetos” are living in the cave already but “many of the microbial life and molds are not.” The rangers also noted to the public, “contrary to popular belief, the cave is NOT a big trash can. Even still, rangers walk the trails at the end of every day and pick up waste left behind.“
