It won't make you feel better, but sadly the extinction of species is as much a part of nature as the death of an individual organism, with nearly all species that have ever existed having gone extinct. Given that, I think the small kindnesses you are showing towards your fellow biosphere inhabitants are about all you can do. IMHO.
Yes species have gone extinct, but they're also been replaced. We're not seeing the replacements these days, only the extinctions. Eventually the biosphere can redevelop from a very small core of survivors, but we'll be long-gone by then.
In fact the day will inevitably come when we've 'reformatted' the entire ecosphere. Why settle for whatever random collection of life-forms were here when we came to sentience as a race? That's all we really have; a snapshot of life on our planet, different from what came before and certainly different from what will come once we've had our way with it, for better or for worse.
I'm describing the situation, not making a judgement. We, as a species, appear rather better at making other species extinct than in preserving them. Our pitiful attempts at preservation will not suffice to preserve current species, I reckon.
