Exhausting an animal is sadism, there's no need for it and no that's not how humans used to hunt, humans were always ones for firepower and chase whether it be spears, guns, etc, it is what resulted in sport. A hungry animal, human or non simply seizes the kill, there's no hanging around when food is scarce you'd only wear yourself out. Exhaustion sports such as the barbaric and increasingly illegal act of fox hunting (especially with hounds) didn't actually come about until the renaissance and are hardly historic. Humans have empathy, however elements such as greed and religious practice and war can surpass that, the lack of empathy is known as psychopathy and as sadism to animals it is zoosadism which for pagans etc was long held against. At one point humanity didn't just respect an animal they had to kill as an offering from nature it actually worshipped animals. That was until the Abrahamic, Roman and Grecian religions sought power to rule people and regard animals as "beast", portraying them as evil and exaggerating them with bestiaries, supplementing sacrificial offerings, which was relatively rare in culture, in fact humans were more likely to offer human sacrifice up to an animal god. Long time man actually saw itself on the same level as all animals, then science recognises that humans are animals and the religions who were barbaric that held gods in man's image were steadily recognised in modern times in the west as merely control plots. Please study natural history. Also art history because there's so much craziness there.
Mankind is not directly cruel, it is much rather ignorant, there are some who are indeed cruel. You here are mankind and there are far more who are either self-preserving or caring than going out their way to inefficiently harm a being. Humans are merely cousins, the mammalian brain little differs, animals can feel, humans are animals. Humans have in past had to use animals to survive but technology and evolution is actually working past that, too many people care. We all live and die, there's no superior species, a race of humankind initiates steadily into a new species, say future humans were cruel to them for being different? Is that racism? Speciesism? Nope, there's no meta boundaries in nature, only painful and pleasurable actions.
Though I don't identity as human for obvious, furry reasons. Certainly humankind is among the least developed in order, it is the most consciously sadistic species which means sadism is taught and it can be untaught. This is why we give education to other countries, so they can get on better. There's intelligent humans and unintelligent ones, need I say also there's no specific kind of intelligence, hence IQ tests aren't always reputable measures for example for skill, google "multiple intelligences", you'll find a lot more of those in other animals, albeit humans being intellectually intelligent.