The grammar of the original sentence is distorting. The grammatical subject is "view," so the sentence indicates that a view is an animal, which is illogical and contrary to the intended meaning. Note that the word "animal," though a noun, is not the grammatical subject of the sentence as written, because the word "animal" is an object of the preposition "of." So (A) is out.

Choice (B) indicates that people view the sheep as ranking with monkeys in intelligence; that's a distortion of the intended meaning. The equality of rank, in the intended meaning, is a fact that's contrary to people's view, not in line with it. So (B) is out. Choice (D) has this same problem, so it's out. Choice (E) also has this problem, among others. Moreover, "view as" is the proper idiom, not "view to be."

The correct answer is (C).