The idea that God doesn't care about individual animals seems hard to justify given what the Bible says.
Originally mankind was commanded to be vegetarian, along with all animals. So the original divine plan was that zero individual animals would be eaten, by man or by another animal.
Genesis 1:29-30
God said, “See, I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all
the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be
yours for food. And to all the animals on land, to all the birds of
the sky, and to everything that creeps on earth, in which there is the
breath of life, [I give] all the green plants for food.” And it was
so.
Rabbi Albo says the background of Kain and Able has to do with these laws of vegetarianism. According to Albo, Kain brought vegetable offerings to be in line with God's command. Abel brought a strange/prohibited offering that required the killing of an animal, and so Kain thought Abel was guilty of a capital crime and felt justified in killing Abel.
This helps explain why God doesn't kill Kain for the murder of his brother, which is what we would all have expected to happen. Kain ends up being spared by God, because from my read of scripture Abel had bloodguilt on his hands despite his animal sacrifice being accepted. In much the same way that David was still beloved by God, but David was still not allowed to build the temple because of all the blood on his hands.
When God decided to flood the Earth we don't often highlight how He was apparently okay with mankind dying out as long as the animals survived. Scripture makes it clear that Noah is being spared due to his righteousness, but the animals God wanted to repopulate the Earth.
Genesis Chapter 7
א וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה לְנֹחַ, בֹּא-אַתָּה וְכָל-בֵּיתְךָ אֶל-הַתֵּבָה:
כִּי-אֹתְךָ רָאִיתִי צַדִּיק לְפָנַי, בַּדּוֹר הַזֶּה. 1 And the LORD
said unto Noah: 'Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee
have I seen righteous before Me in this generation. ב מִכֹּל
הַבְּהֵמָה הַטְּהוֹרָה, תִּקַּח-לְךָ שִׁבְעָה שִׁבְעָה--אִישׁ
וְאִשְׁתּוֹ; וּמִן-הַבְּהֵמָה אֲשֶׁר לֹא טְהֹרָה הִוא, שְׁנַיִם--אִישׁ
וְאִשְׁתּוֹ. 2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee seven and
seven, each with his mate; and of the beasts that are not clean two
[and two], each with his mate; ג גַּם מֵעוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם שִׁבְעָה
שִׁבְעָה, זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה, לְחַיּוֹת זֶרַע, עַל-פְּנֵי כָל-הָאָרֶץ. 3
of the fowl also of the air, seven and seven, male and female; to keep
seed alive upon the face of all the earth.
God only allowed the eating of animals after nearly wiping out all of mankind in the flood. And even then there are lots of limitations. For example we learn that other than eating an animal, mankind only has the right to kill an animal if that animal has killed a human.
Genesis 9
God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fertile and
increase, and fill the earth. The fear and the dread of you shall be
upon all the beasts of the earth and upon all the birds of the
sky—everything with which the earth is astir—and upon all the fish of
the sea; they are given into your hand. Every creature that lives
shall be yours to eat; as with the green grasses, I give you all
these. You must not, however, eat flesh with its life-blood in it.
But for your own life-blood I will require a reckoning: I will require
it of every beast; of humankind, too, will I require a reckoning for
human life, of everyone for each other! Whoever sheds human blood, By
human [hands] shall that one’s blood be shed; For in the image of God
Was humankind made.
And even with the Children of Israel He commanded them in Leviticus that anything they wanted to eat needed to be a sacrifice on the altar, or else they would be held liable for bloodguilt.
Leviticus 17
יהוה spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and his sons and to all
the Israelite people and say to them: This is what יהוה has commanded:
if anyone of the house of Israel slaughters an ox or sheep or goat in
the camp, or does so outside the camp, and does not bring it to the
entrance of the Tent of Meeting to present it as an offering to יהוה,
before יהוה’s Tabernacle, bloodguilt shall be imputed to that party:
having shed blood, that person shall be cut off from among this
people.
So while we were in the desert if someone were to just properly slaughter an animal for dinner to feed his starving family, he would incur bloodguilt. How bad is bloodguilt? According to the Jewish Virtual Library, the following categories of sin incur bloodguilt: Deliberate Homicide, Accidental Homicide, Homicidal Beast, Unlawful Slaughtering of an Animal. The punishment of bloodguilt is death by heaven.
Based on all the above, I'd say the killing of animals ranks really high on God's priority list. It's usually in the same category as killing humans, who we all agree God cares for individually. The more I reread Tanakh and actually sit and contemplate these odd verses about animals, the more vegetarian I end up. Based on my read of the Bible, all meat should be treated with the same care and strictness that many modern Jews treat Kashrut during Pesach.
