Yes I definitely see that point of view. Being smart is a special case of being adaptable, but many other organisms thrive by being well adapted in their niche.

On the other hand, Sapiens has a good quote about there being 2 (at least ?) orders of magnitude more domesticated dogs than wolves in the world. Ditto for pigs and wild hogs, or cattle and comparable wild herbivores.

It has many other pretty shocking statistics about large cats, elephants, etc. The world today is simply much more suited to a dog's way of being than a wolves'.

To put it more starkly, wolves will likely be extinct long before dogs are, because of their different relationship to humans.

But of course ants and other species don't compete for the same resources as humans, and are complementary many ways.

aurochs are extinct

I think anyone reading that would assume he meant large animals.