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You all might appreciate this short but enlightening article by Nick Longrich, evolutionary biologist, titled: Nine Species of Human Once Walked Earth. Now There's Just One. Did We Kill The Rest? [1] The short answer is basically, Yes, yes we did. I wouldn't be surprised at all if someday we find Bigfoot bones and realize we killed them off, too. The other thing that comes to mind from this discussion is our long history as hunters and gatherers. The genus Homo spent a couple million years living in small groups and doing the hunter-gatherer thing. We've only been living in organized societies for about 12K years. But our brains are still wired for hunting and gathering and not quite adept at living in large, organized societies. We're still tribal by nature. I stumbled on this quote from a 1968 collection of conference proceedings that makes the point: [2] "It is still an open question whether man will be able to survive the exceedingly complex and unstable ecological conditions he has created for himself. If he fails in this task, interplanetary archeologists of the future will classify our planet as one in which a very long and stable period of small-scale hunting and gathering was followed by an apparently instantaneous efflorescence of technology and society leading rapidly to extinction." (Lee & Devore, 1968). [1] https://www.sciencealert.com/did-homo-sapiens-kill-off-all-the-other-humans [2] Lee, R.B. & DeVore, I. (eds.) [1968], Man the Hunter. The First Intensive Survey of a Single, Crucial Stage of Human Development – Man’s Once Universal Hunting Way of Life, Chicago, Aldine Publishing Company.

Love the opposable thumbs joke! As for the rest? I think our perception is skewed a bit. I think there is a reason we are one of the last bipedal primates standing. And there is a reason our ancestors were lucky to see 40 years of age. Earth wasn’t a Utopia. It was a single stage winner takes all fight to the death stadium. And we are a product of the ultimate survivors, but old habits die hard. I think just going to water every morning was risking your own life back when. And in some places on Earth? It still is. How many modern humans would have the courage to even leave the cave? Let alone spread out over an entire planet. It’s an amazing story. Our violence today is more organized and mostly contained within our own species. It’s something mostly within our control to solve. Back then? Violence was mostly predation from other species including those in our own genus. Or mishaps or child birth. Most of it must have seemed incredibly random and well outside of our grasp to control. And the survival of our species wasn’t even on the radar. We were just another version of ape men from dozens of species that had came and gone over and over again.

^ yeah, I get it. Lions don't have opposable thumbs either (which are great for making save the whale stickers). The great kindness, compassion and empathy to which you refer seems to be diminishing. Humans are wasting a veritable Utopia so, putting Bigfoot in a zoo seems to be the perfectly wrong thing to do.

I think there is a duality of Homo Sapiens. We have great skill and cunning in being ruthless warriors. But we also have great kindness, compassion and empathy. But I have a sneaking suspicion that this will be may be true of any sentient species. Albeit I don’t see a species of sentient bipedal lions having “save the whale” stickers on their personal transportation vehicles. Each species will add its own twist to intelligence I suppose?

Qualification for basic human rights is on the decline these days so; I would say no, they would not qualify, in our current 'environment'. I don't think there will ever be any Bigfoot in a zoo and that is fine by me. The world that humans have created is a horrible zoo in and of itself that I don't think will be judged favorably when our brief time on Earth is said and done..