Surely the Bible provides its own remedy for why animals would not reciprocally respond to the terms of future social contracts. By eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve became moral beings. Their descendants thus doomed to fixate, elaborate, and quarrel as they continually expanded and refined ethical standards. Whereas, animals remained blissfully unaware of that endless conceptual territory and responsibilities within it -- free to eat each other as usual.
For the secular world ascribing rights to animals, that moral obliviousness might initially seem a problem in terms of justification for such rights. But animals are at least sentient (if not intellectual), and along that route some kind of argument for dignity and freedom from human exploitation can apparently be advanced. Since again, the big-brained bipeds are still stuck with their "mind virus" and its conduct management obligations.
As for humans systematically culling rabbits or other invaders...
In an old interview, Tony Hillerman -- the ultimate source of the Dark Winds television series -- referred to how the Navajo have great respect for snakes, to the point that he may have mistakenly conceived it as worship (decades ago). At any rate, he related how he visited his Navajo friends one day at their ranch and surprisingly saw that they had dozens of dead rattlesnakes straddling the fence.
He commented: "I thought they were your sacred friends."
They responded: "Sometimes you can have too many friends."
It was his way of pointing out that despite having a formal reverence or respect for elements of their natural environment, the Navajo were still a pragmatic people. No doubt any prevailing vegan norm of the future can similarly adjust.
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