Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes they are "animals". So are we. Our intelligence is not much superior to theirs (it's arguable that only the lack of opposable thumbs prevents them from getting on the ladder of developing technology — they already use tools), and they experience the full range of emotions as we do. How would you feel as your entire clan was herded into a box canyon and slaughtered with knives, as you wade through their blood awai…
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Dolphins have language, complex society & culture, self-awareness, use tools, use names for themselves & each other, have higher brain/body-mass ratio vs humans, invent games, act ethically, cooperate across species, and that's just the start of the list when we're only just starting to research the topic.
With all of those components of intelligence (and some features even more advanced vs human capabilities), it should not take much intelligence to see how having opposable thumbs and the ability to write and build on information is a very small step in terms of actual intelligence, BUT that this yields massive visible differences in abilities to change one's environment. (It's still to be seen if this is an actual survival advantage - the Great Filter may still be ahead of us, and be accidental suicide by technology misapplication).
Also, claiming that a single point "invalidates" all other arguments commits a number of fallacies, including Overgeneralization, Non-Sequitor, and Argument from Incredulity...
If you want to feel like it's OK to kill and promote killing of other species for no good reason, it'd be better to just own it than to attempt justifying it with dismissive displays of ignorance.