Dropped Cheetos Could Have Triggered Ecosystem Chaos in Largest US Cave Chamber | Hacker News Reader

Dropped Cheetos Could Have Triggered Ecosystem Chaos in Largest US Cave Chamber

iflscience.com

58 pointsaustinallegro42 comments

If you can't go out into nature without trashing it, just stay home.

When I got hike, I just started taking a trashbag. Was on a waterfall trail in Colorado three weeks ago; someone left a sock, another their _entire pants_ in a tree (we checked around before cleaning them up, and it was obvious they had been there awhile). How you forget your pants is beyond me.

And don't get me started on people's stupid dogs. Dog feces is pollution, and is non-natural in these environments. People will sometimes scoop, but then leave the bag. What part of that is acceptable?

the transplants are trashing the front range and do not care

I have come across the full dog poop bag phenomenon a lot lately on trails and sidewalks. A small group forms, as if there was a memo that someone else wants them or would be picking them up. It is baffling. I would guess that these are people who were not bagging their poop and were chided for that. And then these people took the command too literally, bagging but not carrying away.

I think it is just leaving the bag for picking up on the way back. Not really that complicated.

A whalefall of sorts.

> Over 300 million people visit the national parks each year, generating nearly 70 million tons of trash.

What? Does this include waste the parks themselves generate in brochures and such?

I cannot fathom how each visitor to a national park generates an average of 467 pounds of trash.

Great point! But yeah I think it does, given the source indeed uses “generates”:

https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/teaming-up-to-keep-park-was...

  bringing in and generating nearly 70 million tons of trash

God knows how they get to that number tho. Probably was a sum of all trash operations for all parks system-wide? That would include all the ranger’s trash from living there, along with any waste generated by maintenance, hospitality, and rescue activities. That makes a bit more sense if we consider that there are many national park service units (including national lakeshores, national battlegrounds, etc.), some of which presumably have a much lower ranger:visitor ratio than, say, Great Smoky Mountains NP. Like Gates of the Arctic NP!

Some activities are pretty wasteful (looking at you, mountaineers) and some people dump their RV trash in the little trash cans at the visitor center, but no way that puts a dent in 400lb/person, IMO.

The U.S. generates ~300 million tons of municipal solid waste every year.[1] 1/4 of that is generated in national parks? Not a believable figure.

[1] https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-...

Perhaps the NPS is exempt from those statistics as a federal agency – I imagine the EPA's oversight is different there (as it is for usual local and state agencies, which those stats seem to cover.)

They have to include e.g. dirty earth from oil spill cleanups or something in the stats.

Maybe they meant 70 million pounds of trash.

Now we’re down to ~4 oz. of trash per visitor, which also seems unbelievable.

Some sources do quote it as lbs rather than a tons e.g. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/brand-connect/subaru/tackl...

I could believe it, if most visitors are simply walking through the visitor centers and then leaving, which I bet is the case for a lot of the high traffic parks (think Independence Hall, Lincoln Memorial, etc.) At most you’re dropping some food wrappers, which is pretty light.

Seems low. Talking about trash on both sides of the economic exchange. Buy a meal and you will generate a bunch of trash on consumer side, the business will also generate trash during production.

Every 4th visitor forgets to park properly and they excitedly watch their car fly off the side of the grand canyon.

It wouldn’t actually make a difference right? Like it would be world changing for the life in the cave in the sense that it is short lived and fiercely competitive, but it would quickly return to the original balance, no?

It would achieve a balance but not necessarily the original one. How long it would take I'm not competent to assess unlike apparently everyone else commenting here.

> Rangers spent 20 minutes removing it. Animals will eat the cheetos, mold will spread to the walls

Where it will be consumed by the mold eating cave inhabitants. Do they really think that cave ecosystems weren't prepared for a deer carcass? They had received external supplies of nutrients for millions of years.

Keeping caves clean is a good thing, but if people can't behave can be fined for it. In any case, regular cleaning teams should be included in the budget of the park as part of the management. Stop being cheap with nature.

Except for the aluminum and plastic bag, easily removable, this is a storm in a teacup. Would be relevant only when prehistoric art is present.

Are you a caretaker of cave systems?

Next best thing: a message board contributor.

I don't need to be a caretaker of cave systems to notice the manipulation in this article. Lying for a good cause is still lying, and in the end destroys any credibility.

Bullshit like for example saying that cave ecosystems could be destroyed because <huge improbable number> of trash has been discarded in the sum of <every> protected areas.

Sorry but, how much of these areas do have cave ecosystems? A cheetos bag does not have the same impact in a prairie than in a cave.

The article is leading the reader toward the assumption that caves are flooded with millions of tons of trash; but does not show any data to support that claim except that "the problem was solved in 20 minutes".

If we don't have a real value, we should do research and find a real estimate. Extrapolating from things unrelated to achieve our desired emotional response (based in fake data) is dishonest towards the public. And eventually they will discover the trick and will stop caring.

You're jumping from "this article is bad" to "the underlying event is 'a storm in a teacup'"

I don't take issue with the argument that this article (which is clearly blogspam) is bad. I take issue with your assertion that this is a non-event despite NPS saying otherwise.

Frankly I can't bring myself to believe that you're actually confused by the distinction between the blogspam and the NPS's statement, but I suppose it's possible.

If is so bad, just show me the research, or at least any proof showing that the ecosystem is collapsing.

You know, as me, that the blogspam is the only part what the public will read. And then you have a lot of people with lots of silly and wrong ideas about how nature works.

I'm happy to defer to the professional caretakers of caves to have collated the relevant research behind their opinions, which is why I asked whether you are one.

You're not, so I think onus is on you if you'd like to provide evidence to the contrary of actual expert opinion.

So you require other people to provide links and all sorts of guarantees and royal letters, but you refuse to provide one flimsy cite to support your opinion apart of "experts are experts are experts". And you think that know all about me. Okay. Keep thinking that.

Any other thing that you would want to include before to end this conversation?

Wait sorry, if you're just discarding the entire concept of expertise, then what source could possibly convince you of anything? The sources themselves are just more experts!

Also to be clear, I didn't assume anything about you. My very first question was about your expertise.

Why would you expect that a deer carcass would not alter the ecosystem?

Not irreparably

Have you considered reaching out to tell them they're wrong and to not waste their time? I'm sure as cave caretakers and scientists they're busy doing other things that you could also correct them on.

The scientific community is rife with pretentious know-it-all types. The type that draw conclusions before something is conclusive. Better not to take them seriously.

They recently built a cafe deep inside carlsbad caverns. If food was an issue, that seems a dumb idea.

do you also run a comic book store?

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