My backyard in New York’s Hudson Valley has been a bit like the jungle this spring. Rabbits and woodchucks have feasted on my garden lettuce. A mama deer has been nursing her baby right outside my porch. And a bear tried to get to the window bird feeder, leaving claw marks on my house siding.

When a charming turkey waddled by, I turned to my blue-eyed, 9-year-old grandson, Oliver Miraldi, to determine whether it was male or female. He described in exquisite detail how to tell.

“How,” I asked him, “could you possibly know that?”

Easy, he replied.

“I learned it on ‘Wild Kratts,’” he explained, referring to his favorite afternoon, 30-minute Public Broadcasting Service program that combines video and animation for a sprightly ride though the world’s animal habitats.

A ritual has grown in my household: home from school, Oliver plops in the easy chair with juice and snack and watches the Kratt Brothers, Martin and Chris, as they explore the animal kingdom and cleverly transform into animal heroes.

Their programs — 41 of which are now stored on my DVR, ranging from lemurs to owls — are educational and emphasize conservation. There is no "PAW Patrol" mayhem because, after all, this is nonprofit public broadcasting, not commercial TV. The funding comes from taxpayers, donors, grants and philanthropists.

I don’t have the heart to tell Oliver that the president of the United States — between chasing immigrants — is trying to kill both PBS and National Public Radio with budget cuts that will cripple a sprawling network of public broadcast news and entertainment. Both PBS and NPR, American institutions since their founding in 1967, have sued the president to save both Big Bird and news.

NPR declared in its court........

© The Leader