Why do you feel recognizing animal sentience is absolutely necessary?

Animal sentience is the basis of animal rights. Sentience is the ability to feel and experience sensations – since animals can suffer, it accords them animal rights. For animals to truly benefit, the recognition of animals as sentient beings must be legally acknowledged.
The concept of animal rights is based on the fact that animals (all living creatures other than humans) are sentient beings. A sentient being is one who has the faculty of sensation and perception or the ability to feel physically and emotionally. It has been scientifically proved beyond doubt that animals are sentient beings although quite often they are perceived archaically and unjustly as things or moveable property.
BWC believes that the rights of all animals need to be recognised and acknowledged by everyone, including government by granting legal status to animals: the right to freedom from unnaturally induced pain, the right to shelter, the right to nourishment, the right to indulge their natural instincts, the right to freedom of movement and most importantly, the right to exist. Animals have intrinsic worth and their value should not be based on their usefulness to humans.