Oh, I so totally agree!

As conscious animals, we bear a burden that other animals do not have. For one, they know exactly how to be in the world. I've never met an elk pondering what it means to be an elk, or wondering how it should behave. It knows perfectly. We seem to know nothing. Imagine any other species, say the grizzlies, rampaging about the planet killing everything in sight including and especially its own kind, deliberately fouling every water source it comes upon and even those it can't see, spewing crap into the atmosphere so even it can't breathe, and all the while extolling itself as the most superior animal on the planet. It's a ridiculous image, yet that is who we are to the rest of the species out there.

We are the only part of the whole thing that knows it is part of the whole thing. We have the instincts of other animals, but they are run amuck because we have the ability to separate ourselves from the process and claim more than our share. Only by becoming conscious can we ascertain our useful role in nature. And that involves understanding how our behavior affects the other species on the planet. Since we are capable, and evidently quite willing, of eradicating them, then their well-being is in our hands. What else but our awareness and consciousness will inform our decisions?