But, no speech = automatically no intelligence by many people's standards - so bring on the vivisection labs, the hunting and trapping, and the endless mass slaughter by any inhumane means we fancy. I wonder what would happen if someone decides that running the four-minute mile is the only viable test of intelligence, and anyone who fails obviously cannot think as they should, so it's no holds barred? It makes as little sense as pinning any right to compassion upon such a specialist skill as speech. My point is, that to choose the one thing humans have specialised in, and then say that because animals can't do it we are free to literally do anything we choose to them, no matter how horrific, is a bit bizarre and muddle-headed. I note that we didn't choose criteria like "find your way halfway round the world using the earth's magnetic field" as migrating birds do, or "shoal in your thousands, fleeing from a predator, without stumbling or crushing each other to death" as fish do, or any one of a number of specialist behaviours we cannot hope to mimic as the criteria for intelligence - just, speech. It seems a tad narrow minded and (dare I say it) unintelligent to me.