no shit that animals aren't people. what exactly do you consider "sentient" thought to be? the ability to produce a written language and manufacture products? by defintion sentient means the abilty to be aware and respond to stimulation. all animals posses this, and even the lowest forms that have no seperate nerve mass that regulate body functions (a brain) can still comprehend thier surroundings on a cellular level. since you probbily don't eat much jelly fish and spongues anyways, there is no doubt that all mamals fit into the defintion of sentience. also many animal species have complex relationships and social structures and some can manufacture tools and shelters to use. it's also been studied and confirmed that all brained animals can feel emotions, and thier behaviour demonstrates this consistantly.
so really your belief that you are somehow different from other animals, is just that, a belief that is not founded on any logical or scientific evidence. in other words, just imagining something isn't a good enough deomstartion of it's proof among educated people.
the reason that hawks eat mice is not the same reason that you eat cows and chickens. hawks eat mice because they live in an area where mice live. because they are unable to pick up horses and eat them, they eat things that are about the size of mice. the reason that they live in the area with the mice instead of any other area where they would eat things other then mice is because in that area they have no predators. unlike hawks, humans have no predators anywhere, so we can eat anything anywhere. hawks, like humans can survive off of eating only vegetables, on a purely nutritional level. unlike humans, on a physical level, hawks are much smaller and much more active so they burn far more calories and need more then a human does, because of this if they were to take the time to gather all the vegetables it would take to support them physically, they would die from the effort before they were able to accomplish this, that's why they eat a high calorie easy to catch mouse instead.
as much as some of you may believe it, this is not the case with people. there are vegetarians in the world and not all of them are starving to death.
