Something as simple as a bag of chips can have an unexpectedly large impact, and one tourist learned this the hard way as they were called out by a famous national park after dropping a Cheetos packet inside the largest cave in America.
While you might expect the longevity of the world to mean that nature can withstand the extremes, but experts will be quick to point out that in many cases it's not that simple.
While many of the country's natural landmarks have existed for thousands, if not millions of years, the wildlife that inhabits them is incredibly sensitive to change, and otherwise 'small' actions can have an impact that many couldn't anticipate.
This was observed worryingly last year when a traveling tourist visiting the Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico happened to drop a bag of Cheetos inside the park's stunning cave systems, with scientists warning that this could have led to an 'ecological disaster' if it wasn't removed.
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As reported by UNILAD, employees of the national park appeared to noice the packet of chips in September last year, which was dropped in the area that's referred to as the 'Big Room' — the largest single cave chamber by volume across all of the United States.
In a post on Facebook, the park explained why something as small as this could have such a big impact, warning others to not fall into these 'avoidable' actions in the future.
"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 Facebook post detailed.
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However, it goes on to warn that "other impacts are completely avoidable. Like a full snack bag dropped off-train in the Big Room. To the owner of the snack bag, the impact is likely incidental. But to the ecosystems of the cave it had a huge impact."
They neglected to name and shame the individual that dropped off the bag of chips, hoping that the message would apply to everyone visiting the caves from now on instead of criticizing one specific person.
The dangers of this action all related to how these discarded Cheetos can serve as the perfect conditions for microbial life and fungi to form and thrive inside the caves, which pose an incredible threat to the ecosystem.
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"Cave crickets, mites, spiders and flies soon organize into a temporary food web, dispersing the nutrients to the surrounding cave and formations. Molds spreads higher up the nearby surfaces, fruit, die, and stink. And the cycle continues," the park illustrates. "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."
Thankfully they were able to avoid any issues down the line by retrieving the Cheetos bag, but it should hopefully make you think twice before you next drop anything around nature, as it could have a much greater impact than you'd think.