The Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico recently shared a social media message about the importance of national parks — and how vital it is that people don’t leave anything behind.
This criticism comes after park officials found a bag of Cheetos that completely disrupted the ecosystem in the Carlsbad Caverns.
Disrespectful Tourists
Over the past few years, disrespectful tourists have been increasingly called out by fellow travelers, as well as by city officials and tour guides.
Now, a visitor to Carlsbad Caverns has been criticized for the fact that they littered, leaving behind a bag of Cheetos in a national park.
Visitors Have an Impact
In a post on Facebook, the Carlsbad Caverns National Park explained that we all have an impact when we visit historic areas like the Caverns.
“Great or small, we all leave an impact wherever we go,” the post said. “How we choose to interact with others and the world we share together has its effects, moment by moment. And we feel it.”
Choosing How We Impact People
The post then went on to explain how we can choose how we impact people.
The national park wrote, “When we are greeted with a smile. When we share the first rays of dawn with someone we care about. Or when someone imposes their frustration on us, or when someone we care about forgets to pack the sunscreen and snacks.”
Visitors at Carlsbad Caverns
Park officials further wrote that they completely understand how visitors to the Caverns understandably may leave some sort of an impact.
“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,” the post read.
Dropping a Bag of Cheetos
The post then explained that some acts are avoidable — such as littering and leaving behind a bag of Cheetos.
“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,” the officials wrote.
Cheetos Affected the Cave
According to park officials, this one bag of Cheetos that was left behind completely affected the entire cave — to an unfortunate effect.
The point of this post was to explain that something as small as a bag of Cheetos can fully disrupt the natural ecosystem of something like a cavern.
How the Cavern Was Affected
The post explained in detail how this one bag of Cheetos ended up disrupting the cavern’s ecosystem.
The post read, “The processed corn, softened by the humidity of the cave, formed 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. Molds spread higher up the nearby surfaces, fruit, die and stink. And the cycle continues.”
A World-Changing Event
Officials then explained how they cleaned up this bag and the area it had impacted — and how this small act was world-changing for some of the life in the cavern.
“Rangers spent twenty minutes carefully removing the foreign detritus and molds from the cave surfaces. Some members of this fleeting ecosystem are cave-dwellers, but many of the microbial life and molds are not. 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 said.
A Well Preserved Cave System
Carlsbad Caverns is considered one of the world’s best-preserved cave systems and complexes.
Because of this — and the fact that the caverns are incredibly accessible for people — the Carlsbad Caverns are also one of the best places for scientific studies.
100 Caves and Desert Wildlife
Located in the deserts of New Mexico, Carlsbad Caverns National Park contains more than 100 caves.
The desert region of the park is the home to many wildlife creatures, such as reptiles and various bird species. Therefore, a lot of life roams in this region — and can be easily affected by litter.
Leaving the World in a Better Place
The national park officials ended the post — which was attached to an image of the bag of Cheetos left behind — with a reminder that we should all try to leave the world in a better place.
They wrote, “Great or small we all leave an impact wherever we go. Let us all leave the world a better place than we found it.”
