''I've been a marine enthusiast since the day I was born, but I'm over it now,'' former West Australian SeaNet extension officer, Carl Bevilaqua said.

SeaNet, an award-winning national marine conservation organisation that worked with the commercial fishing industry for 20 years, is one of the high-profile casualties of the Rudd Government's revamped conservation grants program.

It was a hands-on conservation organisation, with staff working on the fishing boats to roll out practical environmental reforms to save seabirds, seals and other marine life from death by entanglement in fishing nets.

Mr Bevilaqua worked for SeaNet in Perth for five years, and helped test the first sea lion exclusion devices to stop animals drowning while feeding from rock lobster pots. He organised marine debris and litter clean-ups on remote beaches, and worked with commercial fishing groups on ways to reduce the number of migrating whales becoming entangled in ropes and fishing gear.

''I really enjoyed the work I was doing because we were contributing to conservation in a practical way. We weren't part of the bureaucratic nightmare of policy. We made changes, we made things happen and we got results.

''We were a unique organisation because we were focused on sustainable fishing. We were out on the boats, helping to get it right and to protect the oceans.''

But Mr Bevilaqua was so disillusioned by the way SeaNet was sidelined and then dumped under the new funding priorities of the Rudd Government's Caring for Our Country grants program, that he's walking away from a career in marine conservation.

''We received disgusting treatment from the government. For weeks we didn't know if we'd have jobs, they kept us waiting around and then they just pulled the plug. It was a real kick in the teeth.''

He has three children and has resolved ''never to put my family through anything like this again.'' There's plenty of work for a roof plumber and more security than working in conservation. So long Carl, and thanks from all the fish.