EDUCATION plays a big part in Dolphin Quest's daily operations, used as a tool to pique kids' interest and a means of heightening public awareness of the unique mammals and their behaviours.

According to the facility's education supervisor Robyn Larkin, a recent research project undertaken by Dolphin Quest has furthered this objective.

"Dolphin Quest sponsored a research project and we worked in conjunction with several other organisations on island to study the wild Bottlenose Dolphins that we believe live around Bermuda ? it's not quite conclusive yet because we haven't been able to do true seasonal studies and tracking but we did that for three years in a row ? 2003 through 2005.

"Our angle this past year was more of a genetic study. It didn't involve actively going out and finding and tracking the dolphins, it was more looking at their genetic makeup to determine how different they were from the inshore Bottlenose Dolphins like we have at Dolphin Quest."

Inshore dolphins are generally found at 20-foot depths. Offshore dolphins are found in deeper waters, generally believed to be more comfortable at depths of several thousand feet. The difference between the two groups is remarkable, according to Mrs. Larkin.

"We think that there is a population of wild Bottlenose Dolphins that do live around Bermuda and we were able to confirm that they are the offshore variety as compared to the coastal or inshore variety that we see with our Bottlenose Dolphins.

"There is definitely a difference. There's different characteristics that you see between the two. Inshore dolphins tend to be a lighter colour whereas offshore dolphins have a darker colour skin.

"Offshore dolphins also are able to hold their breath longer and they've been found to dive a lot deeper than the coastal dolphins, most likely in search of food.

"One of the neatest findings was that the offshore dolphins here were actually recorded to have the deepest dive of any Bottlenose Dolphin in the world ? that was pretty amazing."

The interactive nature of the facility has proved a huge draw for kids. According to the educator, more than 3,000 have visited in this year alone.

"We typically have about 3,000 students in our out-of-water-programmes. And that ranges from career day experiences to the field trips that the schools take.

"We have all ages ? from pre-schools all the way up through high schools ? that come out here for different programmes ranging from endangered species topics to ocean ecology to physics and how we do ultrasounds on our dolphins and how that relates to the dolphins' echolocation or sonar ability. We also do summer camps.

"We go out into the community and do a lot of outreach to the schools. We talk about the different careers we rely on here. Of course training is the easy one but we have educators, we have people who are responsible for our accounting, for our marketing and sales.

"It's a lot of traditional jobs in a non-traditional setting that people don't even think about. We try and highlight all of those aspects and get the kids excited about the many things they can do with us."

Encouraging conservation and stewardship is a significant aspect of her role. Dolphin Quest asks that all staff ? known as crew members ? donate their time to worthy organisations.

"We co-ordinate the stewardship efforts for our crew members. Dolphin Quest allows our crew members about eight hours ? and it's a lot more usually, because we're very dedicated people ? of stewardship opportunity where we can go out and volunteer our time in the community to do various efforts that line up with our mission, vision and values."

Efforts this year include a tree planting along the South Shore in conjunction with the Bermuda Department of Tourism's 'Tourism Cares Effort', turtle scrubbing at the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum & Zoo, blood donations to aid the efforts of the Bermuda Red Cross as well as participation in the international coastal clean-up held in conjunction with the Ocean Conservancy and KBB.

"We help (the Bermuda Feline Assistance Bureau). We feed the cats in Dockyard. We just do a variety of things and it really allows us to each tap into our interests as well as our passions as they apply to Dolphin Quest's mission, vision and values.

"I'm pleased to say, Dolphin Quest Bermuda has done over 400 hours this year with our 20 crew members. That's a lot."

Because their dolphins have all been raised by humans, Dolphin Quest allows a "safe opportunity" for people to interact with them.

"It's a very predictable set-up whereas one thing that we teach people is that if they see dolphins or other animals in the wild, it's not always safe to approach them," explained Mrs. Larkin.

"That's their home. We don't want to interfere with their behaviours or threaten them in any way by simply being in their space. We just want people to understand that they are wild animals and we need to respect them.

"Our trainers are certainly trained to recognise when our dolphins need a little bit of a break from human contact and we give them their space to be dolphins.

"And then when they're ready to participate with us, they come back to us. In the wild that's not always the case.

"And we just encourage people to respect animals ? whether it's jellies or dolphins or sea turtles or whatever ? and just make sure they appreciate the animals and give them the space in their home environment."