It would be a disgusting shame to allow other living, thinking creatures to be lost forever solely due to short-sightedness and greed, I agree. Though I also believe that human life is inherently more valuable than animal life.

Humans in our current form have existed for no time at all on a geological timescale, it's remarkable how quickly global society is progressing towards a less rapacious and survival instinct-based mindset, especially since WW2. As technology and communication improves, we're also improving at... improving.

Human and animal life isn't mutually exclusive, it's a result of a lack of understanding that is leading to us essentially accidentally committing global genocide. We are trying really fucking hard in general to right the wrongs, with unfortunate resistance from a bunch of apes who haven't quite caught up yet.

Give it a few dozen million years and it will be nothing ever happened, no matter how bad things get. The problem is, when will another species with our capacity to understand the world around it manage to claw its way to the top? We've got something going on here that as far as we're aware, no other reiterating pattern of atoms has has ever managed to achieve in a dozen billion years of history. It's got to count for something.