If you applied that same logic to humans, we wouldn't bother trying to find a cure for AIDS or cancer, or other devastating and fatal illnesses. So, from the perspective of cold, hard science, sure, it has a certain logic, but we have love and compassion and the desire to use the intelligence God gave us and it would be wrong not to do so. The trick is having enough wisdon to recognize the boundaries between our domain and that of God and nature.
Sweet Libert,
We attempt find cures for HIV and Cancer to save the lives of Humans, it was not Cancer among the animals or HIV among monkeys that drove us to persue conquering them.
Yes we are charged with responsibile stewardship over our world and its beasts by God. I am not advocating the wholesale slaughter of Apes to rid them from the planet. I am saying that if Ebola is whiping out 80% of apes with every outbreak and the species has 1 infant every 4 to 5 years, and outbreaks average 1 per year or so, apes will be going extinct by this, and if so its not man's fault.
I am not saying the extinction of the Apes is a noble thing, I am saying however that it does appear to be nature taking its course. To blame the extinction of the Ape on Humanity should it go extinct due to Ebola is of course going to be the charge of the ecotrash bretheren, however if a disease does kill 80% of individuals with every outbreak with a reproduction cycle of only 1 per ever 4 or 45 years, Extinction is the end game no matter what the population numbers, the only difference the base number of start individuals has, is how many years until the endgame.
To imply that one is not a person of faith just for stating facts is a bit dubious. To turn the statement of fact into an uncompassionate stand is again dubious. When you as a human see a cheetah chasing an injured, old or young Gazelle, our compassion may be to stop the Cheetah, however by doing so, we deny the Cheetah its ability to do what God put it here to do. Just because one feels compassionate for something, as nature on its base is VERY VERY HARSH, does not mean it is our duty as children of God to undermine or stop those actions.
While we have stewardship over the beasts of the fields, animals are not humans, and to raise them to the level of humans is an afront to the almighty. Just as Man is not God, and to do that as well is a blasphemous affront.