I'm not sure why we consider more intelligent life as more worthy of protection. Why do we consider a specimen in isolation and not a species in its ecosystem.

I'm not sure why we consider more intelligent life as more worthy of protection. Why do we consider a specimen in isolation and not a species in its ecosystem. Eating one crab is considered better than one octopus. What about 100 crabs vs 1 octopus? Where do we draw the line? Or if we consider something not smart enough based on our arbitrary criteria, it's open season to eat as much as we can of it. We're mixing here categories that completely don't go together. Whether we hunt and eat an animal shouldn't be based on its intelligence. But rather on considerations of sustainability and ecosystem disruption. This entire article seems extremely far off from making a coherent argument whatsoever that our actions should be based on.