Edit: Surprised at all the vegans in this thread. I didn’t think there were so many of you. I’m glad you care so much about animal rights, that you’re willing to forego eating them and using products made from them. If you’re not vegan and have moral objections for this, maybe you should look at yourself first and all the animal abuse you sanction by eating animals and using animal products. Did you know dairy cows have to be pregnant to produce milk? They’re artificially inseminated throughout most of their lives. I hope everyone complaining about this also complains about ice cream and cheese. Or else they would be hypocrites who just want to blame others but never look at themselves.
We are, but being a part of the ecosystem doesn’t really mean much. Ecosystems aren’t obligations, authorities, sources of morality or subject to it. They’re just systems of relationships between organisms in a particular place. Whatever humans do, as long as it involves other organisms, that is our role in the local ecosystem. If we start doing something else, we aren’t forgetting our role in the ecosystem, no role was ever assigned to us, our “role” is merely descriptive of what impact we have.