The Animal Kingdom

On my coach journey from Manchester to London the weather was “unusually” grim for English summers…I had the misfortune of driving past several farms and private land alongside the motorway. A certain sight has stuck with me and has led me to the thoughts that follow. As I listened to music, I saw a group of horses who had unfortunately been left out in the rain but they nevertheless were congregating under a tree. The fact that these horses were in fact standing freely beneath a tree and not unconsciously standing out in the rain must be taken as evidence that horses do in fact have some kind of rational thought process. They are not brain dead and completely incapable of making decisions they are in fact the opposite and seem to possess a certain level of intelligence. An infant for example wouldn’t have the “sense” to find a tree and stand beneath it to shield themselves from the rain if left abandoned in a farm (do not try this at home). So why then do we think it is justified to treat animals the way we do? Why do we expect so little from them? I mean I’m not a vegetarian and nor am I one of those people go around preaching that “The power is in the animals”...but I do think that they are a lot smarter than people think. They evidently are conscious and do have basic minds of their own which they can make simple decisions with. So maybe it IS wrong to kill them, use them for transport and subject them to all of the other things that we as humanity have deemed them “useful” for. It would be wrong to treat a baby or a person who is in a vegetive state in these ways so why is it acceptable to treat animals in this way? Just because of the simple fact that they are animals? Are we not animals too?  Humanity is obviously a superior faction of the animal kingdom but we should not doubt the intelligence of the other factions despite of whether they can make the same impact on the world that we can.  Animals not only have a purpose to aid humanity throughout it’s existence but are also have a purpose in themselves I'm sure and therefore are here to be appreciated like trees which ought to be respected due to their role of replenishing oxygen as an example. We should never feel that we are above nature or not a part of it and we should do what we can to keep it going because without it our lives would be unimaginably hindered....just a quick thought.