Animals in Religion

I've always had a problem with how I thought religion (mainly Christianity because that's the one I've been exposed to the most) thought about animals. I grew up surrounded by cats and dogs, I've had mice, gerbils, hamsters, anoles, hissing cockroaches, and giant millipedes as pets (and probably more that I can't think of). When thinking of what to write for this blog, animals popped into my mind. It seems that early religions have so much to do with animals and the environment, and I feel like now, (well not exactly right now with all the environmental issues, but contemporary) religion gives people a stronger feeling of control and domination over the earth and animals. I don't really like this view, I don't think everything was created for humans, so I looked into it a bit more.

The Paleolithic cave art is basically all animals. Native American religions based their worldview on harmony with the earth and nature. Other traditional or tribal religions that I know of usually are animal or environment oriented. Obviously, their lives depended directly on the environment and animals for subsistence and shelter. So they lived in harmony with the earth and creatures around them. I never got the feeling that they considered themselves owners, rulers, or superior to animals.

On the Humane Society website, there's a list of some religion's official statements on animals. I skimmed through them, and most of what I saw was that the faiths have some guidelines for humane treatment of animals and care for the environment. The statements that were not just excerpts from scripture were mainly from the 21st century. There was one from 1990 and 1996, but the rest were in the 2000's. There became a need for it. We were mistreating the environment, so religions had to make statements against it in order to help. Now, I didn't think that religions said that people could do whatever they wanted to the environment and animals, but I felt like that was implyed a little bit. All I could find on this site were the good things though, which helped my opinion.

This statement I liked:
The 208th General Assembly (1996) approved the following statement, "No part of God's creation has value only in relation to human needs and human understanding…"
-from the Presbyterian Church USA

This one, however, I did not:
"Animals and all other creatures exist for the sake of humankind and may be used to serve human purposes."
-from the Roman Catholic Church

The Presbyterian Church made it less self-interested. My thoughts before were exactly what this was against; I had though that the world religions would consider animals and nature in how much it benefited humankind. So this statement raised my view.
The next one shot it down. I think the statement "exist for the sake of humankind" is dangerous and wrong. Of course, this has to do with me being non-religious in part, but I really do not think everything on the earth exists just for humans. But besides my own opinion, telling people that animals are for them does not seem like a good idea to me. That just makes it so much easier for people to justify cruel actions towards animals, because it is for the good of mankind. And then that leads to destroying the environment for industry and agriculture, no matter the harm to the creatures whose habitats they were.

There were other statements by the Roman Catholic Church that people should live in harmony with all of God's creations, but even so, I think that giving people the view that they are superior to all other creatures can lead to destruction. Why can't we all just be part of this world, and work to live in harmony, without anything "dominating" over another?