That's a rather poor argument because it is non-specific. By that argument I can not own a potato either because there is no vital need for me to do so.
The point of framing the argument in the terms that konstruktor has, is to change the debate from, "Are apes sufficiently like humans to justify giving them rights?" to "Are apes sufficiently different from non-sentient entities to justify treating them differently." And I think this is a much more persuasive argument -- I think humanity is less willing accept freely that apes are equivalent to humans on some level, than they are to say that the act of viewing an ape for enjoyment does not justify locking up something that is clearly more intelligent and self-aware than your average apricot.
You could argue that caging an orangutan in particular is not important, however you could just as easily argue that the world might manage if we all stopped growing potatoes.
However, I would personally argue that a rights based system only works when you have a way to have rights clash and reach compromise positions. An open ended right is not very useful because just about every right becomes impossible to enforce or provide at the extremes. When you provide certain agreed upon rights to both humans and orangutans you can have meaningful discussions about where those rights intersect and how those confluences should be handled, and in this way you avoid the absurd implications of absolute rights.
Certainly we can find other philosophical approaches which are more reasonable.
(not taking a position, just pointing out the massive inconsistency)