How a dropped bag of Cheetos had ‘world changing’ impact on life in a cave

The processed corn in the Cheetos, softened by the humidity of the cave, created “the perfect environment to host microbial life and fungi,” park officials wrote.

“Cave crickets, mites, spiders and flies soon organize into a temporary food web, dispersing the [Cheetos’] nutrients to the surrounding cave and formations,” they continued. “Molds spread higher up the nearby surfaces, fruit, die and stink. And the cycle continues.”

Some members of this “fleeting ecosystem” are cave dwellers, but many are not, disrupting the cave’s delicately balanced ecosystem, officials said. “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,” they wrote.

Andy Baker, a professor of biological, earth and environmental sciences at Australia’s University of New South Wales Sydney, echoed the sentiment, writing in an email that: “One way to think about it is that caves are quite extreme places to survive in the scheme of things. There’s no light. Water can be limited. Nutrients are in short supply.”

“So the critters that live in caves have adapted to that environment,” he continued. “Add food of any kind, and that could disrupt the balance of the cave ecosystem.”

Park rangers spent 20 minutes meticulously removing the foreign detritus and molds from the cave surfaces, park officials said, emphasizing that dropping a full snack bag off-trail inside the cave is “completely avoidable.”

Carlsbad Caverns National Park, the site of North America’s largest single cave chamber by volume, hosted close to 400,000 visitors last year, contributing nearly $32 million to the local economy, according to a recent report.

While park rules prohibit visitors from consuming anything but “plain water” in the caverns, that hasn’t stopped hungry tourists from snacking. And the park has struggled with visitors breaking rules before. At least 60,000 cave formations have been broken off, many probably by tourists to take home as illegal souvenirs, officials said in August.

“A lot of folks today treat national parks like theme parks. Park officials have used the Cheetos mishap to stress, in a fun and accessible manner, how human actions are altering the natural world,” Jut Wynne, an assistant research professor of biological sciences at Northern Arizona University, said in an email. “Careless behavior in our natural wonders have consequences.”

Wynne wrote that if there are “sensitive, endangered, or rare undescribed species” discovered in a “pristine cave” that is set to be opened for tourism, that cave should remain closed to the public. But “if closure is not feasible, cave managers should require visitors to use established trails, prohibit bringing food into the cave, mandate special shoes or durable booties, and avoid visits during ecological sensitive times of the year.”

The National Park Service promotes “Leave No Trace” messaging, urging visitors to minimize what they leave behind. “A common saying is to take only photographs and leave only footprints,” Carlsbad Caverns National Park said on social media last month.

While leaving behind some trace — such as the occasional piece of human hair or textile that falls off clothing — is “impossible to prevent,” according to park officials, the campaign encourages visitors to be conscientious about litter they can control.

“Great or small we all leave an impact wherever we go,” Carlsbad Caverns National Park officials said in last week’s post. “Let us all leave the world a better place than we found it.”