Cheetos Bag Disrupts Carlsbad Caverns Ecosystem

A discarded bag of Cheetos inside Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico has disrupted the delicate cave ecosystem. The humidity of the cave softened the processed snack, creating an ideal environment for fungi and microbial life, which in turn attracted cave crickets, mites, spiders, and flies, forming a temporary food web. This incident led park rangers to spend 20 minutes cleaning up the foreign molds and debris. Park officials emphasized that while some impacts, like lint from visitors, are unavoidable, others, such as discarded food, are preventable. They urged visitors to adhere to the 'leave no trace' principle and only consume plain water inside the caves to protect the environment.