Hidden beneath the surface of New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns National Park lay over 120 caves formed by limestone dissolved by sulfuric acid including The Big Room , which is largest single cave chamber by volume in North America. Will Rogers colorfully described The Big Room cavern as “The Grand Canyon with a roof over it” and it is a sub-terrain highlight for thousands of visitors who can walk through and explore a wide variety of calcite deposits called speleothems including stalactites, stalagmites, columns, draperies, soda straws, popcorn, and helictites.
Tourists exploring The Big Room are only permitted to carry plain water, all other food and drinks are strictly prohibited as they can attract animals like raccoons and ringtails into the cavern. Carlsbad Caverns National Park recently found an open and full bag of Cheetos littered on the ground of The Big Room and used it as PSA for visitors highlighting the environmental consequences of a seemingly small piece of litter to the fragile ecosystem in the cave:
“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.”
Rangers spent 20 minutes meticulously cleaning “foreign detritus and molds from the cave surfaces” generated by the Cheetos before they spread to the far reaches of the 4,000 foot long, 625 f00t wide, and 225 f00t tall cave:
“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.”
Remember folks even a small bit of garbage left in a fragile ecosystem can have widespread deleterious effects. We ask all visitors to National Parks to follow the Leave No Trace universal philosophy to protect and preserve both natural resources and the quality of recreational experiences. Follow park rules, don’t be a litterbug and be respectful of natural surroundings.
Carlsbad Caverns National Park Statement:
Great or small we all leave an impact wherever we go. How we choose to interact with others and the world we share together has its effects moment by moment.
And we feel it.
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.
In the same way, we affect the world around us in subtle ways too. 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.
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 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.
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.
Great or small we all leave an impact wherever we go. Let us all leave the world a better place than we found it.