A visitor’s bag of Cheetos that fell on the floor of the Big Room at Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico upended its ecosystem, officials warned recently.
Calling the cheese-flavored corn puff snacks world-changing, park officials said in a Facebook post that conditions in the cave led to a bonanza. Humidity softened the Cheetos, making them even more suitable for hosting mold and bacteria. The molds then began to spread up walls and other surfaces.
Cavern fauna, including crickets, spiders, mites and flies, also moved in, spreading the Cheetos’ nutrients around.
Ultimately, Carlsbad Cavern park rangers had to scrape the mold off surfaces as well as remove the offending bag of Cheetos.
“Some members of this fleeting ecosystem are cave dwellers, but many of the microbial life and molds are not,” the officials said in their post.
Food and drinks other than water are prohibited in the caverns, though that doesn’t deter visitors from bringing them in anyway. Even more mundane human pollutants such as dead skin and clothing fibers are cleaned up after visitors leave.
“When you come into the cave, you bring lint with you, skin cells, fiber off your clothes, so we collect hundreds of pounds of lint out of the cave. We just want everyone to have the same opportunity to come and enjoy this amazing underground wonder,” CCNP Deputy Superintendent Ephriam Dickson told Albuquerque CBS affiliate KRQE.
Park visitors numbered more than 394,000 last year.
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.
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