Human beings needed to see animals as "less than" in that once humans became meat eaters in evolution it was a major game changer. However, what has been interesting also is how human beings also looked upon animals as god like too. For example, the indians placed certain animals as having certain powers and they were to be reveered and protected and respected, this has been the case in other cultures as well in human history.

This friend that repied to you about how Orcas are "less than" because they could never build a theater is showing you his lack of respect for all the things Orcas CAN do that he couldn't do himself. Orcas have evolved to survive the world they exist in and have senses human's don't have. They also communicate in their own language and form attachments to their young. Orcas mourn the loss of a young calf and have been seen having a hard time with the death of a young Orca baby often carrying that dead baby for days.

It's not about only considering value based on intelligence alone either. The true intelligence is being able to recognize THE VALUE in the bigger picture of how it all fits into an entire eco system. Human beings tend to need too much control, to think they are better than when while human beings have proven to be able to create so many things, they can also be the most destructive and selfish too.

When I happened to present an example about a bird I noticed that was tangled up in a long horse hair from a horse's tail that had been gathered and used to build a nest and how I wanted to help that bird? I saw the bigger picture and felt for that bird and was very motivated to help fee it. Part of the bigger picture was the time of year where all the birds were nesting and reproducing and when you observe it these birds actually work VERY HARD looking for a place to build a nest, searching the ground to find things to build their nests out of, some nests are just incredible too, ever see a barn swallow's nest? Then these birds look for a mate and then lay eggs in this nest they spent so much time building. Then they sit on those eggs patiently until they hatch. Once those eggs hatch the birds work extremely hard finding food to bring back to that nest of young. It amazes me just how hard they work and how constant they have to work hard for those young too. So, seeing that bird all tangled up and trying so hard flapping it's wings to try to free itself so it could carry out it's mission of feeding it's young and knowing how the young depend on that bird to live, YES, I am compelled to exert the effort to help free that bird because I respect how much effort it puts into surviving. I was also a mother doing the same for my own offspring.

Honestly, for being so intelligent, human beings can also be incredibly stupid too. Take how human beings could not come to agreements and form respect so they went to war killing thousands until one side or the other surrenders. How dumb is that and some of these wars were large numbers of men marching towards each other with their fashioned weapons savagely slaughtering each other for some kind of "control". I think to myself, perhaps it's just part of our design so we don't over populate depleting natural resources.

Birds keep the insect population down, it's a natural way of controlling the insect populations which is something human beings would definitely notice if there were no birds. The intelligence is often much more than than the human mind understands and sadly often fails to respect.