A full bag of Cheetos, discarded by a subterranean visitor to the Big Room in Carlsbad Caverns national park in New Mexico, has led the US National Park Service to issue a warning that discarded food could have a “huge impact” on the cave’s delicate and at-risk ecosystem.
“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,” the park said in its post about the garbage that was recently discovered there, threatening the balance of the unique cave system environment.
“The processed corn, softened by the humidity of the cave, formed the perfect environment to host microbial life and fungi,” officials wrote. “Cave crickets, mites, spiders and flies soon 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.”
Wow, a single bag was able to support an entire trophic level. That’s pretty wild.
You want to walk into a local government, much less a federal, building and they’ll inspect your tracts to make sure everything is safe for those ghoul politicians. But a whole ecosystem is at stake and no one can be bothered to do anything to prevent damage, except asking nicely after-the-fact.
Unpopular opinion but parks should have rigorous screening and inspections of people and property upon entry to find and execute anyone with Cheetos.
