WHY would alien races, with technologies and civilizations thousands of 
years more advanced than ours, give a damn?

To them, we are little more than lab rats! Barbaric ones, at that.

We might WANT to believe they care, are compassionate towards us, etc., but 
that don't make it so. They are here for purposes of their own, most of 
which we are probably incapable of understanding.

When was the last time you gave a shit about a spider's cruelty to a fly?