Within Guidance an effort has been made to reference every observation, major comment, and contributor. This is very difficult and in some cases can be counter productive because some of the main needs within area management is synthesis -- pulling together fragments of knowledge, hints, leads, memory-traces, conversations, and observations to arrive at a condition of the highest probable-truth state for a particular situation in time and place... always with limited resources.

The major references are those from published sources. Authors have been encouraged to exercise critical, selective skills and not to be exhaustive in developing bibliographies. Some areas of the system, however, have very extensive reference lists. It is possible that some unusual or "unlikely" concepts or events are reported and these, too, are referenced. Thus the reference list should not be viewed as a superior bibliography on refuge management. Of course it is likely that it contains most of such references.

A reference is not exclusively from published sources. It may include any physical material, observable "evidence", such as:

1. conference noted
2. conference abstracts
3. unpublished manuscript
4. consultant report
5. letter
6. letter to the Guidance file (a signed, dated document)
7. a report of a conversation or interview with a person or group with author and date
8. a television tape (in the Guidance file)
9. a photograph (in the Guidance file)
10. a microfile (in the Guidance file)
11. a computer disk (in the Guidance file)