National Park Service Director Mary Bomar believes science supports the decision by Yellowstone National Park staff to set a daily cap of 540 snowmobiles per day in the park.

That's according to Kurt Repanshek, lead writer for the National Parks Traveler, a blog focused on national park issues and former Associated Press correspondent-in-charge for Wyoming.

Repanshek and Bomar were both in San Antonio, Texas, for the National Park Foundation's Leadership Summit this week.

Repanshek quoted Bomar as saying, "I support the superintendent (Suzanne Lewis). I wanted to be supported as a superintendent. I feel that she's been in the field, she's an expert in that area. She feels that the science supports her decision. In fact, very strongly supports her decision."

Al Nash, spokesman for the Yellowstone National Park, said Superintendent Lewis has been in regular communication with top officials at Park Service headquarters in Washington, D.C., so Bomar would be familiar with the park's winter-use plan and its underlying science.

If that's the case, the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees will be disappointed. That group has hoped to persuade Bomar that the science, in fact, contradicts the winter-use plan proposal to set daily snowmobile limits at the 540 mark -- about double the number of snowmobiles that have shown up in the park, on average, over the past three years.

"It is astonishing to me," said Rick Smith, a coalition leader and former acting superintendent at Yellowstone, "that Superintendent Lewis and her staff (would) reach a decision like this. It is not an environmentally friendly decision to increase snowmobile traffic with its impacts on wildlife, air pollution and noise in the park."

Taking a so-called middle position of snowmobile numbers between the current cap of 720 and phasing snowmobiles out, Smith said, simply guarantees that the Park Service will be sued "by both sides" of the controversy -- snowmobile advocates and opponents.

Bill Wade, president of the coalition, said he has been trying to get a meeting with Bomar to impress upon her that Park Service scientists are not comfortable with increasing the number of snowmobiles in the park, beyond what it has been in the past four years.

Wyoming officials and snowmobile advocates have argued for continued access for snowmobilers in Yellowstone.

Mike Snyder, regional director of the Park Service in Denver, will make the final decision on Yellowstone's winter-use plan.