Animals obviously aren't even sentient. We can do with them as we will. /sarcasm

Obviously animals can react to pain stimuli and thus have some degree of rights, assuming we do not have a human justification to not grant them rights.

Carrying on that train of thought, I am a firm believer that we should burn down all the plants in the world. Your counter argument, unless you agree with my moral stance that plants have just as much right to not being eaten as animals, is that we need them for our own automation.

Thus the only reason we shouldn't burn down rainforests is because plants serve a purpose of maintaining human life.