Remember also that a number of the bests around the grove may even be awakened.
People talking about the biology distinction: may I suggest or recommend that you shift your terminology to using the types as defined by the game rule set? It might make getting yourselves on the same page for discussion easier. 5e doesn't use 'animal' as a classification anywhere. It uses 'Beast', which is a specific type. This is separate from 'monstrosity', 'dragon', 'humanoid' and many others. Speak with animals, for example, specifically targets 'beasts', so many "by our real world definition of the term" animals are not included - because they are dragons, or humanoids, or monstrosities, or plants, or aberrations, or giants, etc...
Technically, for example, speak with animals should *not* work on the owlbear. It's a monstrosity, not a beast. Nobody would try to say that it is not an 'animal' by our day to day usage of the word... but it's not a d&d 'beast'.
If you want to talk about how people fit into it - talk about people. Don't think about humans; think about people. That's the first step - there's a lot more than humans out there. If you want to use the in-game classification, use 'humanoid', though there are a lot of people who aren't humanoids, as I'm sure any fiend, celestial or giant will reassure you... and probably a number of shifty undead too, but maybe don't trust them quite as much.
