Rangers at Carlsbad Caverns National Park in southern New Mexico describe it as a “world-changing” event for the tiny microbes and insects that call this…
The salty morsels of processed corn, made soft by thick humidity, triggered the growth of mold on the cavern floor and on nearby cave formationsRangers at Carlsbad Caverns National Park in southern New Mexico describe it as a “world-changing” event for the tiny microbes and insects that call this specialized subterranean environment home.
According to the National Park Service, more than 300 million people visit the national parks each year, bringing in and generating nearly 70 million tons of trash — most of which ends up where it belongs in garbage bins and recycling containers. “It’s such a dark area, sometimes people don’t notice that it’s there. So they walk through it and it tracks it throughout the entire cave," said Joseph Ward, a park guide who is working specifically on getting the “leave no trace” message out to park visitors and classrooms.
After the bag was discovered in July, cave specialists at the park settled on the best way to clean it up. Most of the mess was scooped up, and a toothbrush was used to remove rings of mold and fungi that had spread to nearby cave formations. It was a 20-minute job.
Pleas to treat the caverns with respect are plastered on signs throughout the park, rangers give orientations to visitors before they go underground, and reminders of the do's and don'ts are printed on the back of each ticket stub. "If someone doesn’t feel a personal stake in the preservation of these environments, they may not take the rules seriously,” Tanner said.
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