yes, they are living souls. that's how God describes them.
And God said,
Let the earth bring forth the בהמה ורמש after his kind,
cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind:
and it was so.
(Genesis 1:24)
'creeping thing' is how the Hebrew describes insects.
בהמה ורמש = "nephesh chayyah" = living soul
exactly the same phrase as Genesis 2:7.
your English Bible is wrongly translated. go look it up and see if what i'm saying isn't true
it doesn't matter if you like it.
your opinion and your preferences were not polled.
what matters is that this is the truth.