I see. Well, I can accept that. Here's my attempt at a non-emotional response. Humans don't need animals. They are nothing more the a food source, and humans can get everything we need from plants, which can be grown en-mass anywhere we need them to be grown (with a little effort and energy on our part we could even turn the moon into a garden) so animals are, technically, obsolete. Therefor the only thing I see stopping us from destroying them is greed. We are greedy, we want that Big mac, and to get that Big Mac we need a cow to become beef. Therefore we keep the cow around. We WANT pets, so we keep them around. Animasl could be wiped out, leaving only plants, and humans could easily take their places in all niches using out tech to keep the plants A)Alive, and B)in check. Going down that path we could easilly become the only animals on the planet and do so untouched. As to whether or not that would be logical or moraly correct is irrelevant, if you do not wish to include emotions in this.
Including emotions, many humans feel moraly bound to try and help animals we see as "inferior". Humans, because of emotions like sympathy, feel the illogical need to protect and aid our animal kin. We felt the need to take care of fish, so we became fishkeepers. I felt sorry for that poor kitty in the pound so I took him in and named him Stripes. Emotion is the only thing that makes humans keep animals around, we no longer need them to survive (how many animals do you see working farms in the midwest?). Humans feel morally bound to help animals survive, therefore animals survive. We feel morally bound to protect them, hence animal rights ideas. Take out moral, replace with logic, and animals would be all but extict.
Subrosa, was that emotionless enough for you?
