How a single bag of smuggled Cheetos caused a ‘world-changing’ impact in a national park

Just one bag of Cheetos can “change the world.”

A parker at Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico recently dropped a bag full of Cheetos into the caves.

That one bag of orange powder snacks made a “huge impact” on the cave’s ecosystem, the park said in a Facebook post.

“On the scale of the human perspective, a spilled bag may seem insignificant, but to cave life it can make a world of difference,” the park said.

The post explained how some random impacts may be “difficult or impossible” to prevent, such as the fact that people regularly walk between caves, leaving a thin trail of lint – but other impacts are “completely avoidable”, such as throwing a bag of food.

“For the owner of the food bag, the impact is likely to be incidental. But it had a big impact on the ecosystem of the cave,” the post says.

“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 themselves into a temporary food web, distributing nutrients to the cave and surrounding formations. Molds spread higher on nearby surfaces, fruits, die and smell bad. And the cycle continues.”

Park rangers reportedly spent 20 minutes removing foreign debris and mold from the cave’s surfaces, explaining that while some members of the ecosystem that Cheetos came from are cave dwellers, “much of the microbial life and mold are not.”

“Big or small we all leave an impact wherever we go. Let’s leave the whole world a better place than we found it,” the post concludes.

The park’s website says food and drink are prohibited in the cave, except for plain water, as it attracts animals to areas of the cave “not normally frequented by wildlife”.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park followed up the Cheetos post with a post about their “Leave No Trace” principle – specifically to “properly dispose of trash.”

“Contrary to popular belief, the cave is NOT a large garbage can,” the post reads. “Even so, rangers walk the trails at the end of each day and pick up the trash left behind.”