One thing I really like about Wild Kratts is how the villains are written
Like, all four of the villains (Zach, Gourmand, Donita, Paisley) have different personalities, but all have the same core motivations: Money
Gourmand can choose not to make food with endangered and rare animals, but he chooses to anyway because "rare" food sells for a lot of money. He's not cooking cause he has a genuine passion for cooking, but because he wants money
Donita is a fashion designer who could very easily make designs without rare or endangered animals, but she does anyway, not because she has some grand artistic vision she wants to share with the world, but because they're rare so they sell and she wants money
Paisley is straight up a business CEO who paves down forests and other habitats so she can build tourist attractions there, cause they'll make her a lot of money
Zach is a comic relief villain to an extent so he does sometimes do things out of spite or pettiness, but he's also had some plans where he controlled animals in certain ways (armies, toys), so he could sell them and get money
They're all already rich too, Zach owns a lot of expensive tech and his own jet, Donita also has a private jet along with a few other expensive vehicles, Gourmand owns his own cruise ship, and Paisley is an actual business CEO
Makes a lot of sense for an animal show, but I also really like how they don't assume kids are stupid and don't try to tone down the villains to "people who were born evil and hate animals", but rather, "people who already have plenty of money and are willing to go any length to have more", in a way that they can connect these fictional villains to people in the real world. And them being rich people who still want more money is the show trying to say that the enemy of nature is not humanity as a whole, nor is it people who use plastic straws, it's these guys specifically who already have but always want more money
I also really like how the female villains are written. While it's common for female characters to be written without common mentions of how feminine they are or aren't now, it wasn't as common in the early 2010s (at least, with the shows I watched), but Wild Kratts writes them well. It would've been so easy to write Donita, a woman whose career is fashion design, to be a typical arrogant femininity obsessed person whole whole personality is being girly and feminine and hating things that aren't, but they didn't write her like that. She's instead written like a real person who has her own likes, dislikes, and preferences, who is a money wanting millionaire that hurts animals for cash.
I also like how they could've had the villains being way more cartoonishly evil and going to the extremes like kicking babies or psychologically torturing people, as a lot of media for small children in the early 2010s did, but they didn't (aside from maybe Zach). They're written like real people, but specifically greedy capitalists. They don't assume kids are stupid, they give the villains character and unique traits unrelated to their villainy because kids will still see that they're wrong even if they aren't black and white chaotic evils.
Can't believe I'm a wild kratts blog now.
I somehow comically MISSED every single episode that had Paisley in it (is she a new villain?) so that's a new one to me, but yeah.
Also important to note, the Kratts almost ALWAYS have a point in these villains' episodes where they try to reason with said villain. To tell them that this isn't worth it, that there are better things to be doing, that there are alternates, and that they're hurting animals that they don't need to be hurting. And every time, like you said, there's a resounding "Yeah, and? I don't care, it's making me money." from said villain.
The Kratts aren't JUST freeing the creatures, they are TRYING to educate even Those People about animals and how to live in harmony with them on this planet. And they keep trying. And every time the villains are given a chance to realize that what they're doing is wrong, they go "Yeah, but money???" like it's not just saying that these greedy capitalists are doing bad things for more money, it's saying that they KNOW what they're doing is wrong, they've been given the chance to make it up, and they repeatedly choose not to in favor of more money. These aren't ignorant villains. They're choosing violence.
