Conflicting interests and survival

I haven't taken the time to read about the best way to keep a persistent caterpillar thing from eating my rose bushes, so I've been policing them a couple of times a day and thumping the little guys to some other location. As I do this, I wonder, "am I effectively killing them by changing their environment?"

I have had this quandary with house flies as well. Because of our conflicting interests, our struggle ends with the death of an animated entity. What does this little body, processor, and perhaps other things have in common with me? What is consciousness and am I destroying one by killing the fly? If the fly doesn't have any consciousness, then do animals? How about Coco, the gorilla who can communicate to some degree with sign language? Does she have consciousness? How about a new-born human?

So, on abortion, my stance is simple, "yes, you're killing something. We're not really sure what, but there's definitely some kind of potential which is lost. Now, this may really be the best thing, all things considered". This seems, by my understanding, to be similar to some native American beliefs. We have to kill the animal and eat it to survive. While it would be nice to live without this bloodshed, it is simply a way of life. And there seems to be a mutual respect and peace between man and beast (if such a term may appropriately be applied to the latter).

So what about the fly - and the newborn infant? How about those is Sri Lanka who fled for their lives, only to return home to land which was now privatized? This would be an instance of displacement for personal interest and obvious conflict. And, it seems to me, that this situation is very similar to my removing the caterpillars who are eating my rose bushes: my interest is bringing about potentially negative consequences on other living entities (I know, "living" needs definition).

I saw a video on youTube which showed, I guess, millions of mice on these people's farm. I mean, they're all going to die, right? There's just not enough food to go around. So maybe some consciousnesses are just born/placed/something in the wrong spot for survival or eudemonia and toasting them is perfectly justifiable. Something about this rubs my ethic a little weird, but I don't yet have a concrete explanation for it.

Anyway, more later, I guess.