Most people care more for a mammal than other animals as they are closer related to us. Same way you generally care more about a family member getting in an accident than a stranger. However the vegan philosophy doesn’t dictate anything about this hierarchy. It boils down to: if someone can suffer and feel pain (aka most animals) you should not inflict that on them.

The food industry is usually the main topic as humans can just eat plants (say all major dietician organizations) but instead we gas pigs to death and put chickens in tiny cages their entire lives out of habit, or utter disregard for how they experience that. But the vegan philosophy also rejects animal testing and using an animal purely for entertainment (think zoos).