Bag of Cheetos Blamed for ‘Huge’ Disruption to Carlsbad National Park's Ecosystem

Mar. 15, 2025

Carlsbad Caverns National Park.Photo:Carlsbad Caverns National Park/Facebook

Carlsbad Caverns National Park/Facebook

A simple bag of Cheetos is responsible for causing a major issue at a national park in New Mexico that has park officials calling out those who break the rules.

Earlier this month, Carlsbad Caverns National Park issued a message, via aFacebook post, detailing an incident involving a bag of Cheetos being left behind inside the park’s 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,” park officials said.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park.Getty

Getty

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Representatives from Carlsbad Caverns National Park did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

In an interview withThe Associated Press, Carlsbad Caverns tour guide, Joseph Ward, said that the entire incident “could have been avoided because the park doesn’t allow food beyond the confines of the historic underground lunchroom.”

Luckily the clean-up and removal was a fairly quick process, but park officials noted that continued behavior of leaving outside items inside the park can leave a lasting impact.

“Rangers spent twenty minutes carefully removing the foreign detritus and molds from the cave surfaces. 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,” park officials warned in the post.

source: people.com