I disagree with your theory that we are above animals. The only thing seperating us from animals is higher awareness and intelligence. This is a superiority complex you need to let go of like a lot of other people on this planet. An animal has a soul, a human has a soul. Just because the human has the higher intelligence doesnt mean he's a special preference of god.
This has lead me to believe that our lives are merely here for us to appreciate imperfection (as you said, darkfire). I don't believe what we do has any affect on what occurs in the after life. People live their lives based on their experiences and whos to judge one persons experience from another.

Humans arnt perfect, our societies are continually flawed by the greed and power lust of those megalomaniacs. Human weakness is very obvious at the moment as we are still run by our own instincts. Animals have no need for the morals we've created, they merely "be". If anything, this makes them more enlightened than the majority of humans...